r- 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


MY 

OWN 

STORY 


BY 

JOAQUIN  MILLER, 
AUTHOR  OF 

SONGS  OF  THE  SIERRAS,"  "THE  DANITES,' 

"THE  ONE  FAIR  WOMAN," 

"49,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


CHICAGO: 

BELFORD-CLARKE  CO.,  PUBLISHERS. 
1890. 


COPYRIGHT, 

JOAQUIN   MILLER 

1890. 


E' 
MyM 

8 


I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK 

TO 

THE  DEAREST  FRIEND  OF  MY  LIFE  IN  THE  SIERRAS 

AND 

LATER  WANDERINGS  IN  THE  OLD  WORLD, 
COLONEL   JAMES    VAUGHN    THOMAS, 

OF  LEON,  NICARAGUA, 

WHO  is  NAMED  AND  KNOWN  IN  THESE  PAGES  AS 
"THE    PRINCE." 


PREFACE. 


THIS  book  is  the  story  of  my  life  among  the 
Indians  ;  and  yet  it  is  not  the  story,  not  the  half 
of  it  —  hardly  the  hundredth  part  of  it  —  for  each 
day  of  those  four  years  was  of  itself  a  volume. 
Personal  peril  and  adventure  I  have  left  out  largely, 
because  bigger  and  better  things  are  before  us  in 
the  sublime  scenery  and  the  poetry  and  pathos  of 
a  voiceless  race. 

It  is  a  marvel  that  the  writer,  with  his  impetuosity 
(want  of  common  sense),  survived  even  a  portion 
of  those  days.  For  example,  returning  weary  and 
half-blinded  by  the  snow  from  an  unsuccessful 
hunt,  a  chasm  was  encountered.  His  companions 
picked  their  way  cautiously  around  ;  but  he  auda 
ciously  tried  to  leap  it.  By  the  sheerest  chance  he 
struck  a  narrow  ledge  some  twenty  feet  below,  and 
was  fished  out  by  his  Indian  companions.  "  But  his 
hat  and  gun  are  still  in  that  bottomless  chasm  of 
Mount  Shasta. 

(5) 


vi  PREFACE. 

Similar  incidents  by  flood  and  flame,  to  say 
nothing  of  wild  beasts  and  wilder  men,  both  white 
and  red,  dot  nearly  every  one  of  those  eventful 
and  most  glorious  days.  But  let  us  lift  our  faces 
above  them. 

I  was  living  in  London  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Modoc  war,  and  it  having  become  known,  through 
the  "  Songs  of  the  Sierras,"  that  I  had  once  lived 
with  those  people,  and  neighboring  tribes,  the  writ 
ers  from  the  seat  of  war  gave  most  wild  and 
romantic  accounts  of  my  early  history. 

It  was  said  that  I  was  the  realjoaquin  Murrietta. 
who  had  escaped  with  a  price  on  his  head  to  the 
mountains.  No  one  seemed  to  understand  why  a 
man  should  seek  to  live  in  the  heart  of  the  Sierras 
for  any  other  purpose  than  that  of  plunder. 
Meantime  the  demand  for  books  or  stories  about 
these  Indians,  the  Modoc  war,  and  the  cause  of  it, 
was  very  great  in  London. 

To  throw  the  fictions  of  these  imaginative  writers, 
and  the  facts  as  set  forth  in  a  few  sketches  already 
written,  into  a  book,  was  the  work  of  a  few  weeks. 
A  war  of  extermination,  it  seemed  to  me,  was  being 
waged  against  my  best  friends,  and  it  was  imper 
ative  that  I  should  strike  hard  and  at  once.  And 
so,  in  great  haste,  and  with  a  confusion  of  fact  and 


PREFACE.  vii 

fiction,  a  volume  was  brought  out  by  the  Queen's 
Publisher.  The  first  edition  was  dedicated  to 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  that  great  orator  and  humani 
tarian  mounted  the  forum  for  the  Red  Man,  as  he 
had  for  the  Black  Man. 

The  author  expected  this  book  to  quietly  die 
when  it  had  done  its  work;  but,  as  it  seems  deter 
mined  to  outlive  him,  with  all  its  follies  and  fictions, 
he  has  taken  it  severely  in  hand,  cut  off  all  its 
fictitious  growth,  and  confined  its  leaves  to  the  cold, 
frozen  truth:  "  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth," 
If  not  "  the  whole  truth." 

JOAQUIN  MILLER. 

THE  HEIGHTS,  OAKLAND,  CAL.,  1890. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — A  PREFATORY  UNDERSTANDING  n 

II. — SHADOWS  OF  SHASTA  18 

III. — MY  FIRST  BATTLE  23 

IV.—"  EL  VAQUERO  "  30 

V. — THE  FINGER-BOARD  OF  FATE  •  43 

VI. — IN  A  CALIFORNIA  MINING  CAMP  53 

VII. — DOWN    AMONG   THE    DEAD  63 

VIII. — SNOW!  NOTHING  BUT  SNOW  74 

IX. — BLOOD  ON  THE  SNOW  85 

X. — GIVE  Us  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD     -  102 

XL — SUNSHINE  -  -  113 

XII. — "A  MAN  FOR  BREAKFAST"  -  121 

XIII. — BONE  AND  SINEW  -  133 

XIV. — A  STORM  IN  THE  SIERRAS  -  138 

XV. — A  HOUSE  TO  LET  -  145 

XVI. — TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT,  AS  THE  LAW  DIRECTS  156 

XVII.— HOME                                             -  -  172 

XVIII. — THE  LOST  CABIN       -  -  183 

XIX. — GOOD-BYE  .         -  193 

XX. — THE  LAST  OF  THE  LOST  CABIN  -  203 

XXL — THE  EXPEDITION       -                 -  -  212 

(9) 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII. — A  MAIDEN  AND  A  LETTER  -  215 

XXIII. — A  WILD  CAMPAIGN  -  227 

XXIV. — THE  LOST  CAPTIVE  -  -  237 

XXV. — UNTOLD  TRAGEDIES  -  -  241 

XXVI. — THE  DEATH  OF  PAQUITA  -  247 


MY    OWN    STORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A  PREFATORY   UNDERSTANDING. 

THERE  are  Indians  and  Indians.  A  man  may 
fight  for  some  Indians,  and  fight  against  other 
Indians,  and  yet  not  be  at  all  in  the  wrong.  At 
Waterloo,  France  and  England  were  not  friendly. 
But  in  the  Crimean  war,  less  than  half  a  century 
later,  they  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder.  If  condi 
tions  of  this  sort  can  exist  among  the  most  civil 
ized  nations,  it  ought  not  to  be  counted  so  very 
inconsistent  if  a  boy,  thrown  among  savages,  should, 
in  the  course  of  his  duty,  or  even  desire,  or  per 
haps  in  the  course  of  what  might  really  be  called 
"  diplomacy,"  be  found  fighting  at  one  time  for 
and  with  a  certain  tribe  of  Indians,  and  at  another 
time  against  another  tribe  of  Indians.  And  yet 
an  ungrateful  and  forgetful  world  will  perhaps  con 
tinue  to  insist  that  for  years  the  writer  of  this 


12  MY   OWN   STORY. 

sketch  was  a  savage  among  savages,  and  only  there 
for  blood  and  plunder.  How  cruelly  wrong! 

Let  it  be  said,  in  a  single  paragraph,  that  the 
hand  which  pens  these  lines  has  been  raised  in  six 
several  campaigns  for  the  white  men  against  Indians; 
that  the  writer  was  three  times  terribly  wounded  in 
these  wars. 

Some  of  these  battles  were  fought  in  Oregon, 
some  in  Idaho,  some  in  California.  Some  are  mat 
ters  of  record;  but  for  the  most  part  they  are  per 
ishing  from  the  memory  of  man,  as  the  pioneers  who 
bore  part  with  him  are  perishing  from  the  earth. 
However,  there  is  one  brief  record  which  bears  the 
great  seal  of  the  State  of  California.  It  is  given  here 
because  it  is  brief;  not  at  all  because  it  shows  the 
writer  to  the  best  advantage,  for  this  it  surely  does 
not;  because  in  the  other  expeditions  he  was  the 
leader,  and  led  in  name  as  well  as  in  spirit,  while 
here  he  is  set  down  as  a  private  soldier. 

HEADQUARTERS  ADJUTANT  GENERAL'S  OFFICE,  ) 

STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA,      > 

SACRAMENTO,  CAL.,  December  15,  1883.  ) 

Joaquin  Miller,  New  York. 

DEAR  SIR — In  answer  to  your  letter  addressed  to  General,  now 
Governor,  Stoneman,  I  have  to  say  that  I  find  on  examination  of  the 
records  on  file  in  this  office  that  you  served  as  a  volunteer  in  one  of  the 
early  Modoc  wars,  known  as  the  "  Pitt  River  Expedition,"  from  March 
the  i6th,  1857,  to  May  the  2d,  1857,  for  forty-eight  days.  It  also 
appears  that  you  furnished  your  own  horse  and  equipments.  It  fur- 


A    PREFATORY    UNDERSTANDING.  13 

ther  appears  that  you  arc  the  only  one  who  took  part  in  said  expedition 
that  never  received  any  compensation  for  his  services.  The  fault  is 
probably  your  own,  in  not  applying  for  it.  But  now,  after  the  lapse 
of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  there  is  no  money  in  the  Treasury 
for  the  payment  of  such  claims.  Your  remedy  is  by  special  act  of  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  of  California. 

Respectfully  yours, 

GEO.  B.  CROSBY, 
Adjiiiant  General  for  the  State  of  California. 

[Seal  of  California.] 

As  if  I  had  asked  for  a  certificate  of  this  record 
for  the  money  there  was  in  it!  Still,  let  some 
young  financier  who  is  apt  at  arithmetic  stop  here 
and  calculate  how  much  this  one  State,  to  say  nothing 
of  Idaho,  Oregon,  Arizona  and  the  Federal  States 
also,  might  be  owing  me  now  in  gold  coin.  For 
I  never,  from  any  one,  or  from  any  source  what 
ever,  accepted  one  cent  for  my  services.  Take  this 
one  account  of  California,  which  she  frankly  says, 
under  the  great  seal,  is  due  me,  and  see  what  it 
would  amount  to  at  an  annual  interest  for  more  than 
thirty  years.  The  pay  allowed  was  five  dollars  per 
day  for  horse  and  equipments;  the  same  for  a  man. 
But  compute  and  compound,  after  ascertaining  the 
amount  due  at  the  rate  of  ten  dollars  per  day,  for 
"  forty-eight  days."  You  will  find  that  a  certain 
great  State  is  owing  to  a  certain  humble  person 
nearly  all  the  gold  on  the  great  glittering  dome  of 
her  capitol.  Let  her  people,  then  —  her  strong, 


14  MY   OWN   STORY. 

new  people,  who  are  pushing  us  older  ones  off  the 
globe  —  not  be  too  eager  to  accuse  and  find  fault 
with  the  work  I  have  done  until  that  work  is  in 
some  sort  paid  for.  But  now,  in  order  to  tell  my 
own  true  story  of  my  life  among  the  Indians,  about 
which  so  very  much  has  been  written,  and  about 
which  so  very  little  is  known,  I  must  turn  back  to 
the  beginning. 

A  most  romantic  and  restless  boy,  I  ran  away 
from  school  in  Oregon  at  the  age  o.f  thirteen  to  the 
gold  mines  of  California. 

The  scene  of  this  narrative  lies  immediately  about 
the  base  of  Mount  Shasta.  The  Klamat  River 
with  its  tributaries  flows  from  its  snows  on  the 
north,  and  the  quiet  Sacramento  from  the  south. 
The  Shasta  Indians,  now  but  the  remnant  of  a  tribe 
at  one  time  the  most  powerful  on  the  Pacific,  live 
at  the  south  base  of  the  mountain,  while  the  Mo- 
doc  and  Pitt  River  Indians  live  at  the  east  and 
northeast,  with  the  Klamats  still  to  the  north. 

It  was  late  in  the  fall.  I  do  not  know  the  day 
or  even  remember  the  month;  but  I  do  know  that 
I  was  alone,  a  frail,  sensitive,  girl-looking  boy, 
almost  destitute,  trying  to  make  my  way  to  the 
mines  of  California,  and  that  before  I  had  ridden 
my  little  spotted  cayuse  pony  halfway  up  the  ten- 


VIRW  np  SHASTA. 


A    PREFATORY    UNDERSTANDING.  1$ 

mile  trail  that  then  crossed  the  Siskiyou  Mount 
ains,  I  met  little  patches  of  snow;  and  that  a  keen, 
cold  wind  came  pitching  down  between  the  trees 
into  my  face  from  the  California  side  of  the  sum 
mit. 

At  one  place  I  saw  where  a  moccasin  track  was 
in  the  snow,  and  leading  across  the  trail;  a  very 
large  track  I  thought  it  was  then,  but  now  I  know 
that  it  was  made  by  many  feet  stepping  in  the  same 
impression. 

My  dress  was  scant  enough  for  winter,  and  it 
was  chill  and  dismal.  A  fantastic  dress,  too,  for 
one  looking  to  the  rugged  life  of  a  miner;  a  sort 
of  cross  between  an  Indian  chief  and  a  Mexican 
vaquero,  with  a  preference  for  color  carried  to  ex- 
trenjies. 

As  I  approached  the  summit  the  snow  grew 
deeper,  and  the  dark  firs,  weighted  with  snow, 
reached  their  sable  and  supple  limbs  across  my 
path  as  if  to  catch  me  by  the  yellow  hair,  that  fell, 
like  a  school-girl's,  on  my  shoulders.  Some  of  the 
little  firs  were  covered  with  snow,  and  were  con 
verted  into  pyramids  and  snowy  pillars. 

I  lifted  my  eyes,  and  looked  away  to  the  south. 
Mount  Shasta  was  before  me.  For  the  first  time 
I  now  looked  upon  the  mountain  in  whose  shadows 


l6  MY   OWN   STORY. 

so  many  tragedies  were  to  be  enacted;  the  most 
comely  and  perfect  snow  peak  in  America.  Nearly 
a  hundred  miles  away,  it  seemed,  in  the  pure,  clear 
atmosphere  of  the  mountains,  to  be  almost  at  hand. 
Above  the  woods,  above  the  clouds,  almost  above 
the  earth,  it  looked  like  the  first  approach  of  land 
to  another  world.  Away  across  a  gray  sea  of  clouds 
that  arose  from  the  Klamat  and  Shasta  Rivers,  the 
mountain  stood,  a  solitary  island  ;  white  and  flash 
ing  like  a  pyramid  of  silver  !  solemn  and  majestic, 
sublime!  lonely  and  cold  and  white.  A  cloud  or 
two  about  his  brow,  sometimes  resting  there,  then 
wreathed  and  coiled  about,  then  blown  like  ban 
ners  streaming  in  the  wind. 

I  had  lifted  my  hands  to  Mount  Hood,  uncovered 
my  head,  bowed  down  and  felt  unutterable  things, 
loved,  admired,  adored,  with  all  the  strength  of  an 
impulsive  and  passionate  young  heart.  But  he  who 
loves  and  worships  naturally  and  freely,  as  all 
strong,  true  souls  must  and  will  do,  loves  that 
which  is  most  magnificent  and  most  lovable  in  his 
scope  of  vision.  Hood  is  a  magnificent  idol  ;  is 
sufficient,  if  you  do  not  see  Shasta. 

A  grander  or  a  lovelier  object  makes  shipwreck 
of  a  former  love.  This  is  sadly  so. 


A   PREFATORY   UNDERSTANDING.  1 7 

Jealousy  is  born  of  an  instinctive  knowledge  of 
this  truth. 

Hood  is  rugged,  kingly,  majestic,  terrible  ! 
But  he  is  only  the  head  and  front  of  a  well-raised 
family.  He  is  not  alone  in  his  splendor.  Your 
admiration  is  divided  and  weakened.  Beyond  the 
Columbia  St.  Helen's  flashes  in  the  sun  in  summer, 
or  is  folded  in  clouds  from  the  sea  in  winter.  On 
either  hand  Jefferson  and  Washington  divide  the 
attention  ;  then  farther  away,  fair  as  a  stud  of 
fallen  stars,  the  white  Three  Sisters  are  grouped 
together  about  the  fountain  springs  of  the  Willa 
mette  River;  —  all  in  a  line  —  all  in  one  range  of 
mountains  ;  as  it  were,  mighty  milestones  along 
the  way  of  clouds  !  — marble  pillars  pointing  the 
road  to  God. 

Mount  Shasta  has  all  the  sublimity,  all  the 
strength,  majesty  and  magnificence  of  Hood  ;  yet 
is  so  alone,  unsupported  and  solitary,  that  you  go 
down  before  him  utterly,  with  an  undivided  ado 
ration —  a  sympathy  for  his  loneliness  and  a  devo 
tion  for  his  valor  —  an  admiration  that  shall  pass 
unchallenged. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SHADOWS   OF   SHASTA. 

As  LONE  as  God,  and  white  as  a  winter  moon, 
Mount  Shasta  starts  up  sudden  and  solitary  from 
the  heart  of  the  great  black  forests  of  Northern 
California. 

You  would  hardly  call  Mount  Shasta  apart  of  the 
Sierras;  you  would  say  rather  that  it  is  the  great 
white  tower  of  some  ancient  and  eternal  wall,  with 
nearly  all  the  white  walls  overthrown. 

It  has  no  rival!  There  is  not  even  a  snow- 
crowned  subject  in  sight  of  its  dominion.  A  shin 
ing  pyramid  in  mail  of  everlasting  frosts  and  ice, 
the  sailor  sometimes,  in  a  day  of  singular  clear 
ness,  catches  glimpses  of  it  from  the  sea  a  hundred 
miles  away  to  the  west;  and  it  may  be  seen  from 
the  dome  of  the  capital  340  miles  distant.  The 
immigrant  coming  from  the  east  beholds  the  snowy, 
solitary  pillar  from  afar  out  on  the  arid  sage-brush 
plains,  and  lifts  his  hands  in  silencers  in  answer  to 
a  sign. 

Column  upon  column  of  storm-stained  tamarack, 
strong-tossing  pines,  and  warlike  looking  firs  have 

(18) 


SHADOWS   OF   SHASTA.  IQ 

rallied  here.  They  stand  with  their  backs  against 
this  mountain,  frowning  down  dark-browed,  and 
confronting  the  face  of  the  Saxon.  They  defy  the 
advance  of  civilization  into  their  ranks.  What  if 
these  dark  and  splendid  columns,  a  hundred  miles 
in  depth,  should  be  the  last  to  go  down  in  Amer 
ica!  What  if  this  should  be  the  old  guard  gath 
ered  here,  marshaled  around  their  emperor  in 
plumes  and  armor,  that  may  die  but  not  surren 
der ! 

Ascend  this  mountain,  stand  against  the  snow 
above  the  upper  belt  of  pines,  and  take  a  glance 
below.  Toward  the  sea  nothing  but  the  black  and 
unbroken  forest.  Mountains,  it  is  true,  dip  and 
divide  and  break  the  monotony  as  the  waves  break 
up  the  sea;  yet  it  is  still  the  sea,  still  the  unbroken 
forest,  black  and  magnificent.  To  the  south  the 
landscape  sinksand  declines  gradually,  but  still  main 
tains  its  column  of  dark-plumed  grenadiers,  till  the 
Sacramento  Valley  is  reached,  nearly  ahundred  miles 
away.  Silver  rivers  run  here,  the  sweetest  in  the 
world.  They  wind  and  wind  among  the  rocks 
and  mossy  roots,  with  California  lilies,  and  the  yew 
with  scarlet  berries  dipping  in  the  water,  and  trout 
idling  in  the  eddies  and  cool  places  by  the  basket 
ful.  On  the  east,  the  forest  still  keeps  up  unbroken 


22  MY   OWN   STORY. 

women  without  mercy,  men  without  reason,  brand 
them  with  the  appropriate  name  of  savages. 

I  have  a  word  to  say  for  the  Indian.  I  saw 
him  as  he  was,  not  as  he  is.  In  one  little  spot 
of  our  land,  I  saw  him  as  he  was  centuries  ago 
in  every  part  of  it  perhaps,  a  Druid  and  a  dreamer 
—  the  mildest  and  the  tamest  of  beings.  I  saw 
him  as  no  man  can  see  him  now.  I  saw  him  as  no 
man  ever  saw  him  who  had  the  desire  and  patience 
to  observe,  the  sympathy  to  understand,  and  the 
intelligence  to  communicate  his  observations  to 
those  who  would  really  like  to  understand  him.  He 
is  truly  "  the  gentle  savage  ;  "  the  worst  and  the 
best  of  men,  the  tamest  and  the  fiercest  of  beings. 
The  world  cannot  understand  the  combination  of 
these  two  qualities.  For  want  of  truer  comparison 
let  us  liken  him  to  a  woman — a  sort  of  Parisian 
woman,  now  made  desperate  by  a  long  siege  and 
an  endless  war. 

A  singular  combination  of  circumstances  laid  his 
life  bare  to  me.  I  was  a  child,  and  he  was  a  child. 
He  permitted  me  to  enter  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MY    FIRST   BATTLE. 

As  I  DESCENDED  the  stupendous  and  steep 
mountain  that  fronted  the  matchless  and  magni 
ficent  glory  of  Mount  Shasta,  I  fell  in  with  an  old 
mountaineer  by  the  name  of  "  Mountain  Joe,"  one 
of  Fremont's  former  guides,  who  was  on  his  way 
with  a  small  party  of  Mexicans  to  the  Rio  Grande 
to  get  a  band  of  wild,  or  rather  half-wild,  Mexican 
horses. 

I  was  a  timid  lad,  friendless  and  almost  penniless. 
I  got  acquainted  with  the  old  mountaineer,  as  our 
roads  lay  together,  and  was  glad  to  accept  his  offer 
to  go  along  and  become  a  vaquero. 

Soon  we  reached  his  ranch,  Soda  Springs,  on 
the  headwaters  of  the  Sacramento  river,  and  here 
sat  down  to  rest  and  recruit  our  horses. 

We  had  not  been  here  long,  however,  till  a  band 
of  hostile  Indians  descended  from  Castle  Rocks, 
during  our  temporary  absence,  and  not  only  plun 
dered  our  camp,  but  burned  it  to  the  ground. 

The  few  gold  hunters  along  the  river  formed  a 

company,  and,  along  with  some  friendly  Indians,  all 

(33) 


24  MY    OWN    STORY. 


under  the  lead  of  Mountain  Joe,  stealthily  fol 
lowed  the  hostile  savages  up  into  their  very  strong 
and  seemingly  impregnable  fortress;  and  there  I 
saw  my  first  real  battle  with  Indians. 

This"  castle  "is  the  most  picturesque  object  in  all 
the  magnificent  scenery  of  northern  California.  It 
sits  on  a  high  mountain,  and  is  formed  of  gray 
granite  blocks  and  spires,  lifting  singly  and  in 
groups  thousands  of  feet  from  the  summit  of  the 
mountain.  Most  of  these  are  inaccessible.  Here 
the  Indians  locate  the  abode  of  the  devil.  Hence 
its  name,  "  the  Devil's  Castle." 

All  of  us  were  on  foot,  as  the  Castle  cannot  be 
approached  by  horsemen.  We  reached  Castle 
Lake,  a  sweet,  peaceful  place,  overhung  by  mount 
ain  cypress  and  sweepingcedars,  without  adventure. 
This  is  a  spot  the  Indians  will  not  visit,  for  fear  of 
the  evil  spirits  which  they  are  certain  inhabit  the 
place.  Our  Indian  allies  sat  down  in  the  wood 
overlooking  the  lake,  while  we  descended,  drank 
of  the  cool,  deep  water,  and  refreshed  ourselves 
for  the  combat,  since  the  spies  had  just  returned 
and  reported  the  hostile  camp  only  an  hour  dis 
tant.  The  enemy  was  not  dreaming  of  our  ap 
proach,  and  we  were  in  position,  almost  surround 
ing  the  camp,  before  we  were  discovered. 


MY   FIRST   BATTLE.  25 

When  we  came  near,  Mountain  Joe  distributed 
us  behind  the  rocks  and  trees  in  range  of  and 
overlooking  the  camp.  The  ground  was  all  densely 
timbered,  and  covered  with  a  thick  growth  of  black, 
stiff  chaparral,  save  one  spot  of  a  few  acres,  by  the 
side  of  which  the  Indians  were  camped,  at  the  foot 
of  a  little  hill. 

I  was  placed  by  Mountain  Joe  behind  a  large 
pine,  and  alone.  He  spoke  kindly  as  he  left  me, 
and  bade  me  take  care  of  myself. 

I  put  some  bullets  in  my  mouth,  and  made  all 
preparation  to  do  my  part.  It  seemed  like  an  age 
before  the  fight  began.  I  could  hear  my  heart  beat 
like  a  little  drum. 

The  Indians  certainly  had  not  the  least  suspi 
cion  of  danger.  They  were,  it  seemed,  as  much 
off  their  guard  as  possible.  They  evidently 
thought  their  camp,  if  not  impregnable,  beyond  our 
reach  and  discovery.  They  owed  the  latter  to  their 
own  race. 

At  last  we  were  discerned,  as  some  of  the  most 
daring  and  experienced  were  stealing  closer  and 
closer  to  the  camp,  and  the  wild  Indians  sprang  to 
their  arms  with  whoops  and  yells  that  lifted  my  hat 
almost  from  my  head. 


26  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  yells  were  answered.  Rifles  cracked  around 
the  camp,  and  arrows  came  back  in  showers. 

"  Close  up  !  "  shouted  Mountain  Joe,  and  we  left 
cover  and  advanced.  I  think  I  must  have  swal 
lowed  the  bullets  I  had  put  in  my  mouth,  for  I 
loaded  fro'n  my  pouch  as  usual,  and  thought  of 
the  bullets  in  my  mouth  no  more  as  we  moved 
down  upon  the  yelling  Indians. 

A  little  group  of  us  gathered  behind  some  rocks. 
Then  a  man  came  creeping  to  us  through  the  brush 
to  say  that  the  other  side  of  our  company  was 
being  pressed.  Then  another  came  to  say  that 
Mountain  Joe  had  been  struck  across  the  face  by  an 
arrow,  and  his  eyes  were  so  injured  that  he  could 
not  direct  the  fight. 

We  wound  our  blankets  about  our  breasts  and 
bodies,  so  as  to  guard  against  arrows,  but  our 
heads  were  unprotected. 

Suddenly  the  arrows  came,  whiz,  whistle,  thud, 
right  in  our  faces. 

I  fell  senseless.  After  a  while  I  felt  men  pulling 
me  by  my  shoulders.  I  could  hear  and  understand 
but  could  not  see  or  rise.  It  seemed  to  me  they 
were  trying  to  twist  my  neck  from  my  body.  Yet 
I  felt  no  great  pain,  only  a  numbness  and  utter 
helplessness. 


MY   FIRST   BATTLE.  2/ 

"  Help  me  pull  it  out,"  said  one.      They  pulled. 

"  No,  you  must  cut  off  the  point,  and  then  pull 
it  back." 

Then  they  cut  and  pulled,  and  the  blood  spurted 
out  and  rattled  on  the  leaves. 

"  Poor  boy,  he's  done  for." 

I  could  now  see,  but  was  still  helpless.  Haifa 
'dozen  men  stood  around  leaning  on  their  rifles, 
looking  at  me,  then  around  them,  as  if  for  the 
enemy,  but  the  little  battle  was  over.  By  the  side 
of  m^,  with  his  head  in  a  man's  lap,  lay  a  young 
man,  James  Lane,  with  an  arrow-shot  near  the  eye. 
He  died  of  his  wound. 

An  arrow  had  struck  me  in  the  left  side  of  the 
face,  struck  the  teeth,  and  then  glanced  around 
and  came  out  at  the  back  of  the  neck.  The  wound 
certainly  looked  as  if  it  must  be  mortal,  but  the 
jugular  vein  was  not  touched,  and  there  was  hope. 
I  was  dizzy,  and  sometimes  senseless.  This,  per 
haps,  was  because  the  wound  was  so  near  the 
brain.  I  constantly  thought  I  was  on  the  mountain 
slope  overlooking  home,  and  kept  telling  the  men 
to  go  and  bring  my  mother.  We  had  no  surgeon, 
and  the  men  tied  up  our  wounds  as  best  they  could 
in  tobacco  saturated  in  saliva. 


28  MY   OWN   STORY. 

That  night  the  Indian  camp  was  plundered  and 
burnt. 

In  the  morning  one  kind  but  mistaken  old  fellow 
brought  a  leather  bag,  and  held  it  up  haughtily  be 
fore  my  eyes  in  his  left  hand,  while  he  tapped  it 
gently  with  his  bowie-knife.  The  blood  was  ooz 
ing  through  the  seams  of  the  bag,  and  trickling  at 
his  feet. 

"  Them's  scalps." 

I  grew  sick  at  the  sight. 

The  wounded  were  carried  on  the  backs  of 
squaws  that  had  been  taken  in  the  fight.  A  very 
old  and  wrinkled  woman  carried  me  on  her  back 
by  setting  me  in  a  large  buckskin,  with  one  leg  on 
each  side  of  her  body,  and  then  supporting  the 
weight  by  a  broad  leather  strap  passed  across  her 
brow.  This  was  not  uncomfortable,  all  things  con 
sidered.  In  fact,  it  was  by  far  the  best  thing  that 
could  be  done. 

The  first  half-day  the  old  woman  was  "  sulky," 
as  the  men  called  it  ;  possibly  the  wrinkled  old 
creature  could  feel,  and  was  thinking  of  her 
dead. 

In  the  afternoon  I  began  to  rally,  and  spoke  to 
her  in  her  own  tongue.  Then  she  talked  and 
talked,  and  mourned,  and  would  not  be  still. 


MY   FIRST   BATTLE.  29 

"  You."  she  moaned,  "  have  killed  all  my  boys,  and 
burnt  up  my  home." 

I  ventured  to  protest  that  they  had  first  rob 
bed  us. 

"  No  ; "  she  said,  "  you  first  robbed  us.  You  drove 
us  from  the  river.  We  could  not  fish,  we  could  not 
hunt.  We  were  hungry  and  took  your  provisions  to 
eat.  My  boys  did  not  kill  you.  They  could  have 
killed  you  a  hundred  times,  but  they  only  took 
things  to  eat,  when  they  could  not  get  fish  and  things 
on  the  river." 

We  reached  the  Sacramento,  and  pitched  camp  on 
the  bank  of  the  river  under  some  sweeping  cedars 
below  the  site  of  the  present  hotel  on  the  Lower 
Soda  Spring  ranch.  Here  I  lay  till  able  to  travel. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  EL  VAQUERO." 

ONCE  again  in  the  saddle,  we  made  good  time  on 
our  well-rested  horses,  and  in  a  few  weeks  were  on 
the  waters  of  the  Gila  River. 

We  spent  the  winter  in  Arizona  and  Mexico, 
and  by  the  springtime  Mountain  Joe  and  his 
Mexican  friends  had  a  band  of  horses  numbering 
many  hundreds.  We  made  our  way  back  to  north 
ern  California  slowly;  for  we  had  much  trouble 
with  bad  men,  who  wanted  to  get  money  out  of  the 
Mexicans.  Indeed,  they  were  constantly  robbing 
the  Mexicans,  either  by-  process  of  law,  or  other 
wise.  It  was  almost  a  daily  occurrence  for  some 
Americans  to  swear  out  a  warrant,  or  other  process, 
accuse  the  Mexicans  of  stealing  horses,  and  make 
them  pay  heavily,  either  in  money  or  horses,  to  be 
allowed  to  go  on. 

Finally,  after  many  losses  and  much  bad  luck, 
Mountain  Joe  took  a  few  of  the  remaining  horses  and 
returned  to  his  ranch  at  Soda  Springs,  near  where 
the  battle  had  been  fought,  and  left  me  with  two. 
not  over  good-natured  Mexicans. 


"  EL   VAQUERO."  31 

We  reached  northern  California  after  a  long  and 
lonely  journey,  through  wild  and  fertile  valleys, 
with  only  the  smoke  of  wigwams  curling  from  the 
fringe  of  trees  that  hemmed  them  in,  or  from  the 
river  hank  that  cleft  the  little  Edens  to  disprove 
the  fancy  that  here  might  have  been  the  Paradise, 
and  here  the  scene  of  the  expulsion. 
•  Wj  crossed  flashing  rivers,  still  white  and  clear, 
that  since  have  become  turbid  yellow  pools  with 
barren  banks  of  boulders,  shorn  of  their  overhang 
ing  foliage,  and  drained  of  flood  by  ditches  that 
the  resolute  miner  has  led  even  around  the  mount 
ain  tops. 

On  entering  Pitt  River  Valley  we  met  with  thou 
sands  of  Indians,  gathered  there  for  the  purpose  of 
fishing,  but  they  kindly  assisted  us  across  the  two 
branches  of  the  river,  and  gave  no  sign  of  ill-will. 

We  pushed  far  up  the  valley  in  the  direction  of 
Yreka,  and  there  pitched  camp,  for  the  Mexicans 
wished  to  recruit  their  horses  on  the  rich  meadows 
of  wild  grass  before  driving  them  to  town  for 
market. 

We  camped  against  a  high  spur  of  a  long,  tim 
bered  hill,  that  terminated  abruptly  at  the  edge  of 
the  valley.  A  clear  stream  of  water  full  of  trout, 
with  willow-lined  banks,  wound  through  the  length 


32  MY    OWN   STORY. 

of  the  narrow  valley,  entirely  hidden  in  the  long 
grass  and  leaning  willows.. 

The  Pitt  River  Indians  did  not  visit  us  here, 
neither  did  the  Modocs,  and  we  began  to  hope  we 
were  entirely  hidden,  in  the  deep,  narrow  little 
valley,  from  all  Indians,  both  friendly  and  unfriendly, 
until  one  evening  some  young  men,  calling  them 
selves  Shastas,  came  into  the  camp.  They  were 
very  friendly,  however;  were  splendid  horsemen, 
and  assisted  to  bring  in  and  corral  the  horses  like 
old  vaqueros. 

Our  force  was  very  small,  and  the  Mexicans 
employed  two  of  these  young  fellows  to  attend  and 
keep  watch  about  the  horses. 

Some  weeks  wore  on  pleasantly  enough,  when 
we  began  to  prepare  to  strike  camp  for  Yreka. 
Thus  far  we  had  not  seen  the  sign  of  a  Modoc 
Indian. 

It  was  early  in  the  morning.  The  rising  sun  was 
streaming  up  the  valley,  through  the  fringe  of  fir 
and  cedar  trees.  The  Indian  boys  and  I  had  just 
returned  from  driving  the  herd  of  horses  a  little 
way  down  the  stream.  The  two  Mexicans  were  sit 
ting  at  breakfast,  with  their  backs  to  the  high,  bare 
wall  with  its  crown  of  trees.  The  Indians  were 
taking  our  saddle-horses  across  the  little  stream  to 


"  EL   VAQUERO."  33 

tether  them  there  on  fresh  grass,  and  I  was  walking 
idly  toward  the  camp,  only  waiting  for  my  tawny 
young  companions.  Crack  !  crash  !  thud  ! 

The  two  men  fell  on  their  faces,  and  never  uttered 
a  word.  Indians  were  running  down  the  little  lava 
mountain  side,  with  bows  and  rifles  in  their  hands, 
and  the  hanging,  rugged  brow  of  the  hill  was  curl 
ing  in  smoke. 

I  started  to  run,  and  ran  with  all  my  might 
toward  where  I  had  left  the  Indian  boys.  I 
remember  distinctly  thinking  how  cowardly  it 
was  to  run  and  desert  the  wounded  men,  with 
the  Indians  upon  them,  and  I  also  remember  think 
ing,  that,  when  I  got  to  the  first  bank  of  willows, 
I  would  turn  and  fire,  for  I  had  laid  hold  of 
the  pistol  in  my  belt,  and  could  have  fired,  and 
should  have  done  so,  but  I  was  thoroughly 
frightened,  and  no  doubt,  if  I  had  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  willows,  I  would  have  thought  it 
be,st  to  go  still  further  before  turning  about. 

How  rapidly  one  thinks  at  such  a  time,  and 
how  distinctly  one  remembers  every  thought. 

All  this,  however,  was  but  a  flash,  the  least  part 
of  an  instant.  Some  mounted  Indians  that  had 
been  stationed  up  the  valley  darted  out  at  the  first 
shot,  and  one  of  them  was  upon  me  before  I  saw 


34  MV   OWN   STORY. 

him,  for  I  was  only  concerned  with  the  Indians 
pouring  down  the  little  hill  out  of  the  smoke  into 
the  camp. 

I  was  struck  down  by  a  club,  or  some  hard,  heavy 
object,  maybe  the  pole  of  a  hatchet,  possibly  only 
a  horse's  hoof. 

When  I  recovered,  which  must  have  been  some 
minutes  after,  an  Indian  was  rolling  me  over  and 
pulling  at  the  red  Mexican  sash  around  my  waist. 
He  was  a  powerful  savage,  painted  red,  half-naked, 
and  held  a  war-club  in  his  hand.  I  clutched  tight 
around  one  of  his  naked  legs  with  both  my  arms. 
He  tried  to  shake  me  off,  but  I  only  clutched  the 
tighter.  I  looked  up,  and  his  terrible  face  almost 
froze  my  blood.  I  relaxed  my  hold  from  want  of 
strength.  I  shut  my  eyes,  expecting  the  war-club 
to  crash  through  my  brain  and  end  the  matter  at 
once,  but  he  only  laughed,  as  much  as  an  Indian 
ever  allows  himself  to  laugh,  and,  winding  the  red 
sash  around  him,  strode  down  the  valley. 

My  pistol  was  gone.  I  crept  through  the  grass 
into  the  stream,  then  down  the  stream  to  where  it 
nearly  touched  the  forest,  and  climbed  over  and 
slipped  into  the  wood. 

From  the  timber  rim  I  looked  back,  but  could  see 
nothing  whatever.  The  band  of  horses  was  gone, 


I   RELAXED  MY  HOLD  FOR  WANT  OF  STRENGTH. 


"  EL  VAQUERO."  35 

the  Indians  had  disappeared.  All  was  still.  It  was 
truly  the  stillness  of  death. 

The  Indian  boys,  my  companions,  had  escaped 
with  their  ponies  into  the  wood,  and  I  stole  up  the 
edge  of  the  forest  till  I  struck  their  trail,  and  fol 
lowing  on  a  little  way,  weak  and  bewildered,  I  met 
them  stealing  back  on  foot  to  my  assistance. 

My  mind  and  energy  both  now  seemed  to  give 
way.  We  reached  the  Indian  camp  somehow,  but 
I  have  but  a  vague  and  shadowy  recollection  of 
what  passed  during  the  next  few  weeks.  For  the 
most  part,  as  far  as  I  remember,  I  sat  in  the  lodges 
or  under  the  trees,  or  rode  a  little,  but  never  sum 
moned  spirit  or  energy  to  return  to  the  fatal 
camp. 

I  asked  the  Indians  to  go  down  and  see  what  had 
become  of  the  two  bodies,  but  they  would  not. 
This  was  quite  natural,  since  they  will  not  revisit 
their  own  camp  after  being  driven  from  it  by  an 
enemy,  until  it  is  first  visited  by  their  priest  or 
medicine  man,  who  chants  the  death-song  and 
appeases  the  angered  spirit  that  has  brought  the 
calamity  upon  them.  The  Indian  camp  was  a 
small  one,  and  made  up  mostly  of  women  and  chil 
dren.  It  was  in  a  vine-maple  thicket,  on  the 
bend  of  a  small  stream. 


36  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  camp  was  but  a  temporary  one,  and  pitched 
here  for  the  purpose  of  gathering  and  drying  a 
sort  of  mountain  camas  root  from  the  low,  marshy 
springs  of  this  region.  This  camas  is  a  bulbous 
root  shaped  much  like  an  onion,  and  is  prepared 
for  food  by  roasting  in  the  ground,  and  is  very 
nutritious.  Sometimes  it  is  kneaded  into  cakes 
and  dried.  In  this  state,  if  kept  dry,  it  will  retain 
its  sweetness  and  fine  properties  for  months. 

I  could  not  have  been  treated  more  kindly  even 
at  home.  But  Indian  life  and  Indian  diet  are 
hardly  suited  to  restore  a  shattered  nervous  system 
and  organization  so  delicate  as  was  my  own,  and 
I  got  on  slowly.  Perhaps,  after  all,  I  only  needed 
rest,  and  it  is  quite  likely  the  Indians  saw  this, 
for  rest  I  certainly  had,  such  as  I  never  had  before 
or  since.  It  was  as  near  a  life  of  nothingness 
down  there  in  the  deep  forest  as  one  well  could 
imagine.  There  were  no  birds  in  the  thicket  about 
the  camp,  and  you  even  had  to  go  out  and  climb 
a  little  hill  to  get  the  sun. 

This  hill  sloped  off  to  the  south,  with  the  woods 
open  like  a  park,  and  here  the  children  and  some 
young  women  sported  noiselessly  or  basked  in  the 
sun. 

If  there  is    any  place   outside  of  the   tomb  that 


"  EL  VAQUERO."  37 

can  be  stiller  than  an  Indian  camp  when  stillness 
is  required,  I  do  not  know  where  it  is.  Here  was 
a  camp  made  up  mostly  of  children,  and  what  is 
usually  called  the  most  garrulous  half  of  mankind, 
and  yet  all  was,  so  still  that  the  deer  often  walked, 
stately  and  unconscious,  into  our  midst. 

No  mention  was  made  of  my  going  away  or 
remaining.  I  was  permitted,  as  far  as  the  Indians 
were  concerned,  to  forget  my  existence,  and  so  I 
dreamed  along  for  a  month  or  two,  and  began  to 
get  strong  and  active  in  mind  and  body. 

I  had  dreamed  a  long  dream,  and  now  began  to 
waken  and  think  of  active  life.  I  began  to  hunt 
and  take  part  with  the  Indians,  and  enter  into 
their  delights  and  their  sorrows. 

Did  the  world  ever  stop  to  consider  how  an  In 
dian  who  has  no  theater,  no  saloon,  no  whisky 
shop,  no  parties,  no  newspaper,  not  one  of  all  our 
hundreds  of  ways  and  means  of  amusement,  spends 
his  evening?  Think  of  this!  He  is  a  human  being, 
full  of  passion  and  of  poetry.  His  soul  must  find 
some  expression;  his  heart  some  utterance.  The 
long,  long  nights  of  darkness,  without  any  lighted 
city  to  walk  about  in,  or  books  to  read.  Think  of 
that!  Well,  all  this  miftd,  or  thought,  or  soul,  or 
whatever  it  may  be,  which  we  scatter  in  so  many 


38  MY   OWN    STORY. 

directions,  and  on  so  many  things,  they  center  on 
one  or  two. 

What  if  I  told  you  that  they  talk  more  of  the 
future  and  know  more  of  the  unknown  than  the 
Christian?  That  would  shock  you.  Truth  is  a 
great  galvanic  battery. 

No  wonder  they  die  so  bravely,  and  care  so  lit 
tle  for  this  life,  when  the^  are  so  certain  of  the  next. 

After  a  time  we  moved  camp  to  a  less  gloomy 
quarter,  and  out  into  the  open  wood.  I  now  took 
rides  daily  or  hunted  bear  or  deer  with  the  Indians. 
Yet,  all  this  time,  I  had  a  sort  of  regretful  idea  that 
I  must  return  to  the  white  people  and  give  some 
account  of  what  had  happened.  Then  I  reflected 
how  inglorious  a  part  I  had  borne,  how  long  I  had 
remained  with  the  Indians,  though  for  no  fault  of 
my  own,  and  instinctively  knew  the  virtue  of  silence 
on  the  subject. 

In  this  new  camp  I  seemed  to  come  fully  to  my 
strength.  I  took  in  the  situation  and  the  scenery, 
and  began  to  observe,  to  think,  and  reflect. 

Here  I  found  myself  alone  in  an  Indian  camp 
without  any  obligation  or  anything  whatever  bind 
ing  me  or  calling  me  back  to  the  Saxon.  I  began 
to  look  on  the  romantic*  side  of  my  life,  and  was 
not  displeased. 


" EL   VAQUERO."  39 

The  woods  seemed  very,  very  beautiful.  The  air 
was  so  rich,  so  soft  and  pure  in  the  Indian  summer, 
that  it  almost  seemed  that  you  could  feed  upon  it. 
The  antlered  deer,  fat  and  tame,  almost  as  if  fed  in 
parks,  stalked  by,  and  game  of  all  kinds  rilled  the 
woods  in  herds. 

What  a  fragrance  from  the  long  and  bent  fir 
boughs.  What  a  healthy  breath  of  pine!  All  the 
long  sweet  moonlight  nights  the  magnificent  forest, 
warm  and  mellow-like  from  sunshine  gone  away, 
gave  out  odors  like  burnt  incense  from  censers 
swinging  in  some  mighty  cathedral. 

If  I  were  to  look  back  over  the  chart  of  my  life 
for  happiness,  I  should  locate  it  here  if  anywhere. 
It  is  true  that  there  was  a  little  cast  of  concern  in 
all  this  about  the  future,  and  some  remorse  for 
wasted  time;  and  my  life,  I  think,  partook  of  the 
Indian's  melancholy,  which  comes  of  solitude  and 
too  much  thought,  but  the  memory  of  these  few 
months  always  appeals  to  my  heart,  and  strikes  me 
with  a  peculiar  gentleness  and  uncommon  delight. 

The  Indians  were  not  at  war  with  the  whites,  nor 
were  they  particularly  at  peace.  In  fact,  they  assert 
that  there  has  never  been  any  peace  since  they  or 
their  fathers  can  remember.  The  various  tribes, 
sometimes  at  war,  were  also  then  at  peace,  so  that 


40  MY   OWN   STORY. 

nothing  whatever  occurred  to  break  the  calm  repose 
of  the  golden  autumn. 

The  mountain  streams  wentfoaming  down  among 
the  boulders  between  the  leaning  walls  of  yew  and 
cedar  trees  toward  the  Sacramento.  The  partridge 
whistled  and  called  his  flock  together  when  the  sun 
went  down;  the  brown  pheasants  rustled  as  they  ran 
in  strings  through  the  long  brown  grass,  but  nothing 
else  was  heard.  The  Indians,  always  silent,  are  un 
usually  so  in  autumn.  The  majestic  march  of  the 
season  seemed  to  make  them  still.  They  moved  like 
shadows.  The  conflicts  of  civilization  were  beneath 
us.  No  sound  of  strife;  the  struggle  for  the  posses 
sion  of  usurped  lands  was  far  away,  and  I  was  glad, 
glad  as  I  shall  never  be  again.  I  know  I  should 
weary  you,  to  linger  here  and  detail  the  life  we  led; 
but  as  for  myself  I  shall  never  cease  to  re-live  this 
life. 

With  nothing  whatever  to  do  but  learn  their 
language  and  their  manners,  I  made  fast  progress, 
and  without  any  particular  purpose  at  first,  I  soon 
found  myself  in  possession  of  that  which,  in  the 
hands  of  a  man  of  cunning,  would  be  of  great 
value.  I  saw  then  how  little  we  know  of  the  Indian. 
I  had  read  some  flaming  picture-books  of  Indian  life, 
and  I  had  mixed  ail  my  life  more  or  less  with  the 


"  EL   VAQUERO."  41 

Indians;  that  is,  such  as  are  willing  to  mix  with  us  on 
the  border;  but  the  real  Indian,  the  brave,  simple, 
silent  and  thoughtful  Indian  who  retreats  from  the 

O 

white  man  when  he  can,  and  fights  when  he  must, 
I  had  never  before  seen  or  read  a  line  about.  I  had 
never  even  heard  of  him.  Few  have. 

A  very  few  years  from  now  the  red  man,  as  I 
found  him  there  in  the  forests  of  his  fathers,  shall 
not  be  found  anywhere  on  earth.  I  am  now  cer 
tain,  that,  if  I  had  been  a  man,  or  even  a  clever, 
wide-awake  boy,  with  any  particular  business  with 
the  Indians,  I  might  have  spent  years  in  the  mount 
ains,  and  known  no  more  of  these  people  than 
others  know.  But,  lost  as  I  was,  and  a  dreamer, 
too  ignorant  of  danger  to  fear,  they  sympathized 
with  me,  took  me  into  their  inner  life,  told  me  their 
traditions. 

I  began  to  say  to  myself,  Why  cannot  they  be 
permitted  to  remain  here?  Let  this  region  be  un- 
traversed  and  untouched  by  the  Saxon.  Let  this 
be  a  great  National  Park,  peopled  by  the  Indian 
only.  I  saw  the  justice  of  this,  but  did  not  at  that 
time  conceive  the  possibility  of  rt. 

No  man  leaps  full-grown  into  the  world.  No 
great  plan  bursts  into  full  and  complete  magnifi 
cence  and  at  once  upon  the  mind.  Nor  does  any 


42  MY    OWN   STORY. 

one  suddenly  become  this  thing  or  that.  A  com 
bination  of  circumstances,  a  long  chain  of  reverses 
that  refuses  to  be  broken,  carries  men  far  down  in 
the  scale  of  life,  without  any  fault  whatever  of 
theirs.  A  similar  but  less  frequent  chain  of  good 
fortune  lifts  others  up  into  the  full  light  of  the  sun. 
Circumstances  which  few  see,  and  fewer  still  under 
stand,  fashion  the  destinies  of  nearly  all  the  active 
men  of  the  plastic  world.  The  world  watching  the 
gladiators  from  its  high  seat  in  the  circus  will 
never  reverse  its  thumbs  against  the  successful 
man.  Therefore  succeed,  and  have  the  approval 
of  the  world.  Nay  !  what  is  far  better,  deserve  to 
succeed,  and  have  the  approval  of  your  own  con 
science. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  FINGER-BOARD  OF  FATE. 

I  NOW  stood  face  to  face  with  the  outposts  of  the 
great  events  of  my  life.  Here  were  the  tawny 
people  with  whom  I  was  to  mingle.  There  loomed 
Mount  Shasta,  with  which  my  name,  if  remembered 
at  all,  will  be  remembered. 

I  visited  many  of  the  Indian  villages,  where  I 
received  nothing  but  kindness  and  hospitality. 
They  had  never  before  seen  so  young  a  white  man. 
The  Indian  mothers  were  particularly  kind.  My 
tattered  clothes  were  replaced  by  soft  brown  buck 
skins,  which  they  almost  forced  me  to  accept.  I 
was  not  only  told  that  I  was  welcome,  and  that 
they  were  so  glad  to  see  me,  but  I  was  made  to 
feel  that  this  was  the  case.  Their  men  were  manly, 
tall,  graceful.  Their  women  were  beautiful,  and 
their  wild  and  natural,  simple  and  savage  beauty 
was  beyond  anything  I  have  since  seen,  and  I  have 
twice  gone  the  circuit  of  the  earth  since  I  first 
pitched  camp  at  the  base  of  Shasta. 

I  came  to  sympathize  thoroughly  with  the  In 
dians.  Perhaps,  if  I  had  been  in  a  pleasant  home, 

(43) 


44  MY  OWN   STORY. 

had  friends,  or  even  had  the  strength  of  will  and 
capacity  to  lay  hold  of  the  world,  and  enter  the 
conflict  successfully,  I  might  have  thought  much  as 
others  thought,  and  done  as  others  have  done  ; 
but  I  was  a  gypsy,  and  had  no  home.  I  did  not 
fear  or  shun  toil,  but  I  despised  the  treachery  and 
falsehood  practiced  in  the  struggle  for  wealth,  and 
kept  as  well  out  of  it  as  I  could. 

All  these  ideas  of  mine  seem  very  singular  now 
for  one  so  young.  Yet  it  appears  to  me  I  always 
had  them  ;  maybe,  I  was  born  with  a  nature  that 
did  not  fit  into  the  molds  of  other  minds.  At  all 
events,  I  began  to  think  very  early  for  myself,  and 
nearly  always  as  impracticably  as  possible.  Even  at 
the  time  mentioned  I  had  some  of  the  thoughts  of 
a  man  ;  and  at  the  present  time,  perhaps,  I  have 
many  of  the  thoughts  of  a  child.  My  life  on  horse 
back  and  among  herds  from  the  time  I  was  old 
enough  to  ride  a  horse,  had  made  me  even  still 
more  thoughtful  and  solitary  than  was  my  nature, 
so  that  on  some  things  I  thought  a  great  deal,  or 
rather  observed,  while  on  other  things,  practical 
things,  I  never  bestowed  a  moment's  time.  I  had 
never  been  a  boy,  that  is,  an  orthodox,  old-fash 
ioned  boy,  for  I  never  played  in  my  life.  Games 
of  ball,  marbles,  and  the  like,  are  to  me  still  mys- 


THE   FINGER-BOARD   OF  FATE.  45 

terious  as  the  rites  in  a  pagan  temple.  I  then  knew 
nothing  at  all  of  men.  Cattle  and  horses  I  under 
stand  thoroughly.  But  somehow  I  could  not 
understand  or  get  on  with  my  fellow-man.  He 
seemed  to  always  want  to  cheat  me — to  get  my 
labor  for  nothing.  I  could  appreciate  and  enter 
into  the  heart  of  an  Indian.  Perhaps  it  was  be 
cause  he  was  natural  ;  a  child  of  nature  ;  nearer  to 
God  than  the  white  man.  I  think  what  I  most 
needed  in  order  to  understand,  get  on  and  not  be 
misunderstood,  was  a  long  time  at  school,  where 
my  rough  points  could  be  ground  down.  The 
schoolmaster  should  have  taken  me  between  his 
thumb  and  finger  and  rubbed  me  about  till  I  was 
as  smooth  and  as  round  as  the  others.  Then  I 
should  have  been  put  out  in  the  society  of  other 
smooth  pebbles,  and  rubbed  and  ground  against 
them  till  I  got  as  smooth  and  pointless  as  they. 
You  must  not  have  points  or  anything  about  you 
singular  or  noticeable  if  you  would  get  on.  You 
must  be  a  pebble,  a  smooth,  quiet  pebble.  Be  a 
big  pebble  if  you  can,  a  small  pebble  if  you  must. 
But  be  a  pebble  just  like  the  rest,  cold  and  hard, 
and  sleek  and  smooth,  and  you  are  all  right.  But 
I  was  as  rough  as  the  lava  rocks  I  roamed  over, 


46  MY   OWN   STORY. 

as  broken  as  the  mountains  I  inhabited;  neither  a 
man  nor  a  boy. 

How  I  am  running  on  about  myself,  and  yet  how 
pleasant  is  this  forbidden  fruit !  The  world  says 
you  must  not  talk  of  yourself.  The  world  is  a 
tyrant.  The  world  no  sooner  discovered  that  the 
most  delightful  of  all  things  was  the  pleasure  of 
talking  about  one's  self,  even  more  delightful  than 
talking  about  one's  neighbor,  than  straightway  the 
world,  with  the  wits  to  back  it,  pronounced  against 
the  use  of  this  luxury. 

Who  knows  but  it  is  a  sort  of  desire  for  revenge 
against  mankind  for  forbidding  us  to  talk  as  much 
as  we  like  about  ourselves,  that  makes  us  so  turn 

upon  and  talk  about  our  neighbors  ? 

*  *  *  *  *  *  # 

Winter  was  now  approaching;  and,  while  I  should 
have  been  welcome  with  the  Indians  to  the  end,  I 
preferred  to  consider  my  stay  with  them  in  the  light 
of  a  visit,  and  decided  to  go  on  to  Yreka  (a  mining 
camp  then  grown  to  the  dignity  of  a  city),  and  try 
my  fortune  in  the  mines. 

It  was  unsafe  to  venture  out  alone,  if  not  impos 
sible  to  find  the  way;  but  the  two  young  men  who 
had  assisted  as  vaqueros  in  the  valley  set  out  with 
me,  and  led  the  way  till  we  touched  the  trail  leading 


THE   FINGER-BOARD    OF   FATE.  47 

from  Red  Bluffs  to  Yreka,  on  the  eastern   spurs  of 
Mount  Shasta.      Here  they  took  a  tender  farewell, 
turned  back,  and  I  never  saw  them  again. 
*#**#** 

I  rode  down  and  around  the  northern  end  of  the 
deep  wood,  and  down  into  Shasta  Valley. 

If  I  was  unfit  to  take  my  part  in  the  battle  of  life 
when  I  left  home,  I  was  now  certainly  more  so.  My 
wandering  had  only  made  me  the  more  a  dreamer. 
My  stay  with  the  Indians  had  only  intensified  my 
dislike  for  money-makers,  and  the  commercial  world 
in  general,  and  I  was  as  helpless  as  an  Indian. 

I  was  so  shy  that  I  only  spoke  to  men  when 
compelled  to,  and  then  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
and  embarrassment.  I  remember,  lonely  as  I  was 
in  my  ride  to  Yreka,  that  I  always  took  some  by- 
trail,  if  possible,  if  about  to  meet  people,  in  order 
to  avoid  them,  and  at  night  would  camp  alone  by 
the  wayside,  and  sleep  in  my  blanket  on  the  ground, 
rather  than  come  face  to  face  with  strangers. 

I  left  the  Indians  without  any  intention  of  return 
ing,  whatever.  I  had  determined  to  enter  the  gold 
mines,  dig  gold  for  myself,  make  a  fortune,  and 
return  to  civilization. 

In  spite  of  my  resolution  to  boldly  enter  the  camp 
or  city  and  bear  my  part  there,  as  I  neared  the  town 


48  MY   OWN   STORY. 

my  heart  failed  me,  and  I  made  on  to  Cottonwood, 
a  mining  camp  twenty  miles  distant,  on  the  Klamat, 
and  a  much  smaller  town. 

After  two  or  three  days  of  unsuccessful  attempts 
to  find  some  opening,  I  determined  to  again  marshal 
courage  and  move  upon  Yreka.  I  accordingly,  on 
a  clear,  frosty  morning,  mounted  my  pony,  and  set 
out  alone  for  that  place. 

I  rode  down  to  the  banks  of  the  beautiful,  arrowy 
Klamat  —  misspelled  Klamath  —  with  many  peace 
ful  Indians  in  sight. 

A  deep,  swift  stream  it  was  then,  beautiful  and 
blue  as  the  skies;  but  not  so  now.  The  miners 
have  filled  its  bed  with  tailings  from  the  sluice  and 
torn;  they  have  dumped,  and  dyked,  and  mined  in 
this  beautiful  river-bed  till  it  flows  sullen  andturbid 
enough.  Its  Indian  name  signifies  the  "  giver  "  or 
"  generous,"  from  the  wealth  of  salmon  it  gave  the 
red  men  till  the  white  man  came  to  its  banks. 

The  salmon  will  not  ascend  the  muddy  w.ater 
from  the  sea.  They  come  no  more,  and  the  red 
men  are  gone. 

As  I  rode  down  to  the  narrow  river,  I  saw  a  tall, 
strong  gentleman  in  top  boots  and  silk  sash,  stand 
ing  on  the  banks  calling  to  the  ferryman  on  the 
opposite  side. 


THE  FINGER-BOARD   OF  FATE.  49 

Up  to  this  moment,  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  never 
yet  seen  a  perfect  man.  This  one  now  before  me 
seemed  to  leave  nothing  to  be  desired  in  all  that 
goes  to  make  the  comely  and  complete  gentlemen. 
Young  —  I  should  say  he  was  hardly  twenty-five  — 
and  yet  thoroughly  thoughtful  and  in  earnest. 
There  was  command  in  his  quiet  face,  and  a  dignity 
in  his  presence,  yet  a  gentleness,  too,  that  won  me, 
and  made  it  seem  possible  to  approach  as  near  his 
heart  as  it  is  well  for  one  man  to  approach  that  of 
another. 

This,  thought  I,  as  I  stood  waiting  for  the  boat, 
is  no  common  person.  He  is  surely  a  prince  in 
disguise;  wild  and  free,  up  here  in  the  mountains 
for  pleasure.  I  associated  him  with  Italian  princes 
dethroned,  or  even  a  king  of  France  in  exile.  He 
was  surely  splendid,  superb,  standing  there  in  the 
morning  sun,  in  his  gay  attire,  by  the  swift  and 
shining  river,  smiling,  tapping  the  sand  in  an  ab 
sent-minded  sort  of  way  with  his  boot.  A  prince! 
truly  nothing  less  than  a  prince!  The  man  turned 
and  smiled  good-naturedly,  as  I  dismounted,  tapped 
the  sand  with  his  top-boot,  gently  whistled  the 
old  air  of  "  '49,"  but  did  not  speak. 

He  was  attired  something  after  the  Mexican 
style  of  dress,  with  a  wealth  of  black  hair  on  his 


5O  MY   OWN   STORY. 

shoulders,  a  cloak  on  his  arm,  and  a  pistol  in  his 
belt. 

The  boatman  came  and  took  us  in  his  narrow 
little  flat,  and  set  his  oars  for  the  other  side.  The 
handsome  stranger  spoke  to  me  pleasantly,  and  I 
was  more  than  pleased  when  he  accepted  my  offer 
to  "  ride  and  tie,"  as  we  trudged  on  toward  the 
city  together. 

It  was  late  in  the  day  when  we  passed  on  one 
side  of  the  dusty  road  we  had  been  traveling  but  a 
short  distance,  a  newly  erected  gallows,  and  a  popu 
lous  graveyard  on  the  other.  Certain  evidences, 
under  the  present  order  of  things,  of  tlie  nearness 
of  civilization. 

Mount  Shasta  is  not  visible  from  the  city.  A 
long  butte,  black,  and  covered  with  chaparral,  lifts 
up  before  Yreka,  shutting  out  the  presence  of  the 
mountain 

It  was  a  strange  sort  of  inspiration  that  made  the 
sheriff  come  out  here  to  construct  his  gallows —  out 
in  the  light,  as  it  were,  from  behind  the  little  butte, 
and  full  in  the  lace  of  Shasta. 

A  strange  sort  of  inspiration  it  was,  and  more 
beautiful,  that  made  the  miners  bring  the  first  dead 
out  here  from  the  camp,  from  the  dark,  and  dig  his 


THE   FINGER-BOARD   OF  FATE.  51 

grave  here  on  the  hillside,  full  in  the  light  of  the 
lifted  and  eternal  front  of  snow. 

Dead  men  are  even  more  gregarious  than  the 
living.  No  one  lies  down  to  rest  long  at  a  time 
alone,  even  in  the  wildest  parts  of  the  Pacific.  The 
dead  will  come,  if  his  place  of  rest  be  not  hidden 
utterly,  sooner  or  later,  and  even  in  the  wildest 
places  will  find  him  out,  and  one  by  one  lie  down 
around  him. 

The  shadows  of  the  mountains  in  mantles  of  pine 
were  reaching  out  from  the  west  over  the  thronged, 
busy  little  new-born  city,  as  we  entered  its  popu 
lous  streets. 

The  kingly  sun,  as  if  it  was  the  last  sweet  office 
on  earth  that  day,  reached  out  a  shining  hand  to 
Shasta,  laid  it  on  his  head  till  it  became  a  halo  of 
gold  and  glory,  withdrew  it  then,  and  then  the 
shadowy  curtains  of  night  came  down,  and  it  was 
dark  almost  in  a  moment. 

The  Prince  unfastened  his  cloak  from  the  ma- 
cheers  behind  my  saddle,  and,  as  he  did  so,  cour 
teously  asked  if  I  was  "  all  right  in  town,"  and  I 
boldly  answered,  "  Oh,  yes,  all  right  now."  Then 
he  bade  me  good-bye,  and  walked  rapidly  up  the 
street. 

If  I  had  only  had  a  little  nerve,  the  least  bit  of 


52  MY    OWN    STORY. 

practical  common  sense  and  knowledge  of  men,  I 
should  have  answered,  "  No,  sir;  I  am  not  all 
right  at  all.  I  am  quite  alone  here.  I  do  not 
know  a  soul  in  this  city  or  any  means  of  making  a 
living.  I  have  nothing  in  the  world  but  a  half-dol 
lar  and  this  pony.  I  am  tired,  cold,  hungry,  half- 
clad,  as  you  see.  No,  sir,  since  you  ask  me,  that 
is  the  plain  truth  of  the  matter.  I  am  not  all  right 
at  all." 

Had  I  had  the  sense  or  courage  to  say  that,  or 
any  part  of  that,  he  would  have  given  me  half  his 
all,  and  been  proud  and  happy  to  do  it. 

I  was  alone  in  the  mines  and  mountains  of  Cali 
fornia.  But  what  was  worse  than  mines  and 
mountains,  I  was  alone  in  a  city.  I  was  alone  in 
the  first  city  I  had  ever  seen.  I  could  see  nothing 
here  that  I  had  ever  seen  before,  but  the  cold  far 
stars  above  me. 

I  pretended  to  be  arranging  my  saddle  till  the 
Prince  was  out  of  sight,  and  then,  seeing  the  sign 
of  a  horse  swinging  before  a  stable  close  at  hand,  I 
led  my  tired  pony  there,  and  asked  that  he  should 
be  cared  for. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

IN  A   CALIFORNIA   MINING   CAMP. 

I  THINK  I  was  ill.  I  remember  some  things  but 
vaguely  which  took  place  this  night,  and  the  day 
and  night  that  followed. 

I  am  certain  that  something  was  wrong  all  this 
time;  for,  as  a  rule,  when  we  first  land  from  a 
voyage,  or  reach  a  journey's  end,  the  mind  is  fresh 
and  strong  —  a  blank  ready  to  receive  impressions 
and  to  retain  them. 

If  you  will  observe  or  recall  the  fact,  you  will 
find  that  the  first  city  you  visited  in  China,  or 
the  first  seaport  you  touched  at  in  Europe,  is 
fixed  in  your  mind  more  perfectly  than  any  other. 
But  my  recollection  of  this  time,  usually  clear  and 
faultless,  is  shadowy  and  indistinct.  I  was  so 
weary  that  I  slid  down  into  the  manger,  under  the 
nose  of  my  pony,  and  lay  there  shivering  and 
half  doubled  up  all  night.  I  was  surely  ill. 

I  stole  away  from  the  stable  at  dawn ,  and  reached  the 
main  street.  A  tide  of  people  poured  up  and  down, 
and  across  from  other  streets,  as  strong  as  if  in  New 
York.  The  white  people  on  the  sidewalks,  the 

(53) 


54  MY  OWN, STORY. 

Chinese  and  mules  in  the  main  street.  Not  a 
woman  in  sight,  not  a  child,  not  a  boy.  People 
turned  to  look  at  me  as  at  something  new  and  out 
of  place. 

I  was  very  hungry,  faint,  miserable.  The  wind 
pitched  down  from  the  white-covered  mountains, 
cold  and  keen,  and  whistled  above  the  crowds  along 
the  streets.  I  got  a  loaf  of  bread  for  my  half-dollar, 
walked  on,  ate  it  unobserved,  and  was  stronger. 

I  walked  up  the  single  long  street  in  that  direction, 
the  hills  began  to  flash  back  the  sun  that  glowed 
from  Shasta's  helmet,  and  my  heart  rose  up  with 
the  sun.  I  said:  "  The  world  is  before  me.  Here 
is  a  new  world  being  fashioned  under  my  very  feet. 
I  will  take  part  in  the  work,  and  a  portion  of  it 
shall  be  mine." 

All  this  city  had  been  built,  all  this  country 
opened  up,  in  less  than  two  years.  Twenty  months 
before,  only  the  Indian  inhabited  here;  he  was  lord 
absolute  of  the  land.  But  gold  had  been  found  on 
this  spot  by  a  party  of  roving  mountaineers;  the 
news  had  gone  abroad,  and  people  poured  in  and 
had  taken  possession  in  a  day,  without  question  and 
without  ceremony. 

And  the  Indians?  They  were  pushed  aside.  At 
first  they  were  glad  to  make  the  strangers  welcome; 


IN   A    CALIFORNIA   MINING   CAMP.  55 

but,  when  they  saw  where  it  would  all  lead,  they 
grew  sullen  and  concerned. 

I  hurried  on  a  mile  or  so  to  the  foot-hills,  and 
stood  in  the  heart  of  the  placer  mines.  Now  the 
smoke  from  the  low  chimneys  of  the  log  cabins 
began  to  rise  and  curl  through  the  cool,  clear  air  on 
every  hand,  and  the  miners  to  come  out  at  the  low 
doors;  great  hairy,  bearded,  six-foot  giants,  hat- 
less,  and  half-dressed. 

They  stretched  themselves  in  the  sweet,  frosty 
air,  shouted  to  each  other  in  a  sort  of  savage  ban 
ter,  washed  their  hands  and  faces  in  the  gold-pans 
that  stood  by  the  door,  and  then  entered  their 
cabins  again,  to  partake  of  the  eternal  beans  and 
bacon  and  coffee,  and  coffee  and  bacon  and  beans. 

The  whole  face  of  the  earth  was  perforated  with 
holes;  shafts  sunk  and  being  sunk  by  these  men  in 
search  of  gold,  down  to  the  bed-rock.  Windlasses 
stretched  across  these  shafts,  where  great  buckets 
swung,  in  which  men  hoisted  the  earth  to  the  light 
of  the  sun  by  sheer  force  of  muscle. 

The  sun  came  softly  down,  and  shone  brightly 
on  the  hillside  where  I  stood.  I  lifted  my  hands 
to  Shasta,  above  the  butte  and  town,  for  he  looked 
like  an  old  acquaintance,  and  again  was  glad. 

It   is   one    of  the    chiefest   delights  of  extreme 


56  MY  OWN  STORY. 

youth,  and  I  may  add  of  extreme  ignorance,  to 
bridge  over  rivers  with  a  rainbow.  And  one  of  the 
chief  good  things  of  youth  and  verdancy  is  buoy 
ancy  of  spirits.  You  may  be  twice  vanquished  in 
a  day,  and,  if  you  are  neither  old  nor  wise,  you  may 
still  be  twice  glad. 

A  sea  of  human  life  began  to  sound  and  surge 
round  me.  Strong  men  shouldered  their  picks  and 
shovels,  took  their  gold-pans  under  their  arms,  and 
went  forth  to  labor.  They  sang  little  snatches  of 
songs  familiar  in  other  lands,  and  now  and  then 
they  shouted  back  and  forth,  and  their  voices  arose 
like  trumpets  in  the  mountain  air. 

I  went  down  among  these  men  full  of  hope.  I 
asked  for  work.  They  looked  at  me  and  smiled, 
and  went  on  with  their  labor.  Sometimes,  as  I 
went  from  one  claim  to  another,  they  would  ask  me 
what  I  could  do.  One  greasy,  red-faced  old  fellow, 
with  a  green  patch  over  his  left  eye,  a  check  shirt, 
yellow  with  dirt,  and  one  suspender,  asked  : 

"  What  in  hell  are  you  doing  here  anyhow  ?  " 

At  dusk  I  again  sought  the  rude,  half-open  stable, 
put  my  arms  around  my  pony's  neck,  caressed  him 
and  talked  to  him  as  a  brother.  I  wanted,  needed 
something  to  love  and  talk  to,  and  this  horse  was 
all  I  had. 


IN   A    CALIFORNIA   MINING   CAMP.  S7 

Pretty  soon  the  man  who  kept  the  stable,  a 
negro,  came  in  and  bullied  me  roundly  for  having 
slept  in  the  manger.  I  waited  till  he  turned  away, 
and  then  hastened  to  climb  into  the  loft,  and  hide 
in  a  nest  of  hay. 

It  was  late  when  I  awoke.  I  had  a  headache, 
and  hardly  knew  where  I  was.  When  I  had  col 
lected  my  mind  and  understood  the  situation,  I 
listened  for  the  negro's  voice.  I  heard  him  in  the 
far  part  of  the  stable,  and,  frightened  half  to  death, 
hastened  to  descend. 

When  a  young  bear  up  a  tree  hears  a  human  voice, 
it  hastens  down,  even  though  it  be  perfectly  safe 
where  it  is,  and  will  reach  the  ground  only  to  fall 
into  the  very  arms  of  the  hunter. 

My  conduct  was  something  like  that  of  the  young 
bear.     I  can  account  for  the  one  about  as  clearly  ' 
as  for  the  other. 

My  hat  was  smashed  in  many  shapes,  my  clothes 
were  wrinkled,  and  there  were  fragments  of  hay 
and  straw  in  my  hair.  My  heart  beat  audibly,  and 
my  head  ached  till  I  was  nearly  blinded  with  pain 
as  I  hastened  down. 

There  was  no  earthly  reason  why  I  should  fear 
this  negro.  Reason  would  have  told  me  it  was  not 


58  MY  OWN  STORY. 

in  his  power  to  harm  me;  but  I  had  not  then  grown 
to  use  my  reason. 

There  are  people  who  follow  instinct  and  impulse, 
much  as  a  horse  or  dog,  all  through  rather  eventful 
lives,  and  in  some  things  make  fewer  mistakes 
than  men  who  act  only  from  reason. 

A  woman  follows  instinct  more  than  man  does, 
and  hence  is  keener  to  detect  the  good  or  bad  in  a 
face  than  man,  and  makes  fewer  real  mistakes. 

When  I  had  descended,  and  turned  hastily  and 
half-blinded  to  the  door,  there  stood  the  negro, 
glaring  at  me  ferociously. 

"  What  the  holy  poker  have  you  been  a  doin'  up 
there?  Stealin'  my  eggs,  eh?  Now,  look  here,  you 
better  git.  Do  you  hear?  "  And  he  came  toward 
me.  "  I  know  you;  do  you  hear?  I  know  you 
stole  dat  hoss.  Now  you  git.  " 

What  should  I  do?  What  did  I  do?  Iran!  A 
boy's  legs,  like  a  mule's  heels,  answer  many  argu 
ments.  They  are  his  last  resort,  and  often  his  first. 
Deprive  him  of  everything  else,  but  leave  him  his 
legs,  and  he  will  get  on. 

I  was  not  strong.  I  was  not  used  to  making  my 
way  through  a  crowd,  and  got  on  slowly.  I  ran 
against  men  coming  down  the  street  with  picks  and 
pans,  and  they  swore  lustily.  I  ran  against  China- 


IN  A   CALIFORNIA   MINING  CAMP.  59 

men,  with  great  baskets  on  their  bamboo  poles, 
who  took  it  in  good  part  and  said  nothing.  I 
expected  every  moment  this  black  man  would  seize 
me  in  his  black  hands,  and  lug  me  off  to  a  prison. 
.1  was  surely  delirious. 

At  last,  when  near  the  hotel,  I  took  time  to  look 
over  my  shoulder.  I  could  see  nothing  of  him; 
he  perhaps  had  not  left  the  stable. 

As  I  passed  the  hotel  the  Prince  came  out.  He 
had  slept  and  rested  these  two  nights,  and  looked 
fresh  as  the  morning. 

"  How-dy-do?  "  said  the  Prince,  in  his  quiet,  good- 
humored  way.  "  How-dy-do?  Take  a  drink?  " 
And  he  led  me  into  the  bar-room.  I  followed 
mechanically. 

In  most  parts  of  America  the  morning  salutation 
is,  "  How  d'ye  do?  How's  the  folks?  "  But  on  the 
Pacific  it  is,  "  How-dy-do?  Take  a  drink?  " 

There  was  a  red  sign  over  the  door  of  the  hotel 
—  a  miner  with  a  pick,  red  shirt,  and  top  boots. 
I  lifted  my  face  and  looked  at  that  sign  to  hide  my 
expression  of  concern  from  the  Prince. 

"  Hullo,  my  little  chicken,  what's  up?  You  look 
as  pale  as  a  ghost.  Come,  take  a  smash!  It  will 
strengthen  you  up.  Been  on  a  bender  last  night ; 
no?  "  cried  an  old  sailor,  glass  in  hand. 


60  MY    OWN   STORY. 

There  was  an  enormous  box-stove  there  in  the 
middle  of  the  room,  with  a  drum  like  a  steam  boiler 
above,  and  a  great  wood  fire  that  cracked  and  roared 
like  a  furnace. 

The  walls  were  low,  of  painted  plank,  and  were 
hung  around  with  cheap  prints  in  gay  colors  —  of 
race-horses,  prize-fighters  and  bull-dogs.  One  end 
of  the  room  was  devoted  to  a  local  picturing,  on  a 
plank  half  the  size  of  a  barn  door,  which  was  called 
a  Mexican  Bull.  The  great  picture  of  the  place, 
however,  was  that  of  a  grizzly  bear  and  hunter, 
which  hung  at  the  back  of  the  man  who  dealt  out 
the  tumblers  behind  the  bar.  This  picture  was 
done  by  the  hunter  himself.  He  was  represented 
clasped  in  the  bear's  embrace,  and  heroically  driv 
ing  an  enormous  knife  to  his  heart.  The  knife  was 
big  and  broad  as  a  handsaw,  red  and  running  with 
blood.  The  bear's  forelegs  were  enormous,  and 
nearly  twice  as  long  and  large  as  his  hind  ones. 
It  may  be  a  good  stroke  of  genius  to  throw  all  the 
strength  and  power  in  the  points  to  which  the  atten 
tion  will  most  likely  be  directed.  At  least,  that 
seemed  to  be  the  policy  adopted  by  this  artist  of  the 
West. 

An  Indian  scalp  or  two  hung  from  a  corner  of  this 
painting.  The  long,  matted  hair  hung  streaming 


IN  A   CALIFORNIA   MINING  CAMP.  6 1 

down  over  the  ears  of  the  bear  and  his  red,  open 
mouth.  A  few  sheaves  of  arrows  in  quivers  were 
hung  against  the  wall,  with  here  and  there  a  tom 
ahawk,  a  scalping-knife,  boomerang  and  a  war- 
club,  at  the  back  of  the  "  bar-keep." 

Little  shelves  of  bottles,  glasses  and  other  requi 
sites  of  a  well-regulated  bar  sprang  up  on  either  side 
of  the  erect  grizzly  bear;  and  on  the  little  shelf  where 
the  picture  rested  lay  a  brace  of  pistols,  capped 
and  cocked,  within  hand's  reach  of  the  cinnamon- 
haired  barkeeper.  This  man  was  short,  thick-set, 
and  of  enormous  strength,  strength  that  had  not 
remained  untrained.  He  had  short,  red  hair,  which 
stuck  straight  out  from  the  scalp;  one  tooth  out  in 
front,  and  a  long,  white  scar  across  his  narrow,  red 
forehead.  He  wore  a  red  shirt,  open  at  the  throat, 
with  the  sleeves  rolled  up  his  brawny  arms  to  the 
elbows. 

All  this  seems  to  be  before  me  now.  I  believe  I 
could  count  and  tell  with  a  tolerable  accuracy  the 
number  of  glasses  and  bottles  there  were  behind  the 
bar. 

Here  is  something  strange.  Everything  that 
passed,  everything  that  touched  my  mind  through 
any  source  whatever,  every  form  that  my  eyes 
rested  upon,  in  those  last  two  or  three  minutes  be- 


62  MY  OWN  STORY. 

fore  I  broke  down,  remained  as  fixed  and  substan 
tial  in  the  memory  as  shafts  of  stone. 

Is  it  not  because  they  were  the  last?  because  the 
mind,  in  the  long  blank  that  followed,  had  nothing 
else  to  do  but  fix  those  last  things  firmly  in  their 
place,  something  as  the  last  scene  on  the  land  or 
the  last  words  of  friends  are  remembered  when  we 
go  down  on  a  long  journey  across  the  sea? 

I  have  a  dim  and  uncertain  recollection  of  trying 
hard  to  hold  on  to  the  bar,  of  looking  up  to  the 
Prince  for  help  in  a  helpless  way;  the  house  seemed 
to  rock  and  reel,  and  then  one  side  of  the  room  was 
lifted  up  so  high  I  could  not  keep  my  feet  —  could 
not  see  distinctly,  could  not  hear  at  all,  and  then 
all  seemed  to  recede;  and  all  the  senses  refused  to 
struggle  longer  against  the  black  and  the  blank  sea 
that  came  over  me,  and  all  things  around  me. 

The  Prince,  I  think,  put  out  his  strong  arms  and 
took  me  up,  but  I  do  not  know.  All  this  is  pain 
ful  to  recall.  I  never  asked  anything  about  it  when 
I  got  up  again,  because  I  tried  to  forget  it.  That 
is  impossible.  I  see  that  bar,  barkeeper,  and 
grizzly  bear  so  distinctly  this  moment,  that,  if  I  were 
a  painter,  I  could  put  every  face,  every  tumbler, 
everything  there,  on  canvas  as  truthfully  as"  they 
could  be  taken  by  a  photograph. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

DOWN  AMONG  THE    DEAD. 

A  CHANGE  had  suddenly  come  over  the  actions, 
and,  I  may  say,  the  mind  of  the  Prince.  He  saw 
that  I  was  alone,  friendless,  helpless.  He  put  out 
his  hand  and  drew  me  to  his  heart.  He  made  me 
his  own.  I  had  fallen  into  his  hands  so  helplessly 
and  so0  wholly  that  I  was  in  a  way  absolutely  his. 
He  did  not  shift  the  responsibility,  nor  attempt  to 
escape  it. 

I  could  not,  of  course,  then  understand  why  my 
presence,  or  the  responsibility  of  a  young  person 
thrown  on  him  in  this  way,  could  have  influenced 
him  for  good  or  evil,  or  have  altered  his  plans  or 
course  of  life  in  anyway  at  all.  I  think  I  can  now. 
I  did  not  stop  to  inquire  then.  It  so  happens  that 
when  very  young  we  are  not  particular  about  rea 
sons  for  anything. 

It  is  often  a  fortunate  thing  for  a  man  that  the 
fates  have  laid  some  responsibility  to  his  charge. 
From  what  I  could  learn  the  Prince  was  utterly 
alone;  had  no  one  depending  on  him;  had  formed 

no  very  ardent  attachments;  expected,    of  course, 

(63) 


64  MY   OWN   STORY. 

to  leave  the  mountains  sometime,  and  settle  down 
as  all  others  were  doing,  but  did  not  just  then  care 
to  fix  the  time,  or  assume  any  concern  about  it. 

Naturally  noble  and  generous  in  all  his  instincts, 
he  fell  to  planning  first  for  me,  and  then  for  himself 
and  me  together.  He  saw  no  prospect  better  than 
that  of  an  honest  miner.  For,  be  it  known,  this 
man  was,  or  had  been,  a  gambler. 

After  casting  about  for  many  days  in  the 
various  neighboring  localities,  the  Prince  finally 
decided  to  pitch  his  tent  on  a  tributary  of  the 
Klamat,  and  the  most  flourishing,  newly  discovered 
camp  of  the  north.  It  lay  west  of  the  city,  a  day's 
ride  down  in  a  deep,  densely  timbered  canon,  out  of 
sight  of  Mount  Shasta,  out  of  sight  of  everything  — 
even  the  sun;  save  here  and  there  where  a  land 
slide  had  plowed  up  the  forest,  or  the  miners  had 
mown  down  the  great  evergreens  about  their  cab 
ins,  or  town  sites  in  the  camp. 

I  asked  the  Prince  to  go  down  and  see  about  my 
pony  when  we  were  about  to  set  out,  but  the  negro 
had  confiscated  him  long  since  —  claimed  to  have 
disposed  of  him  for  his  keeping.  "  He's  eat  his 
cussed  head  off, "  said  he,  and  I  saw  my  swift,  patient 
little  companion  no  more. 

On  a  crisp  morning,  we   set  out  from  the  city, 


DOWN  AMONG  THE  DEAD.         65 

and,  when  we  had  reached  the  foot-hills  to  the 
west,  we  struck  a  fall  of  snow,  with  enormous  hare, 
ears  as  large,  almost,  as  those  of  Mexican  mules, 
crossing  here  and  there,  and  coyotes  sitting  on  the 
ground,  tame  as  dogs,  looking  down  on  the  cabins 
and  camp  below. 

We  had,  strapped  to  our  saddles  behind  us, 
blankets,  picks,  shovels,  frying-pans,  beans,  bacon 
and  coffee, —  all,  of  course,  in  limited  quantities. 

The  two  mules  snuffed  at  the  snow,  lifted  their 
little  feet  gingerly,  spun  around  many  times  like 
tops,  and  brayed  a  solemn  prayer  or  two  to  be 
allowed  to  turn  back. 

Snow  is  a  mule's  aversion.  Give  him  sand,  even 
the  heat  of  a  furnace,  and  only  sage-brush  to  sub 
sist  upon,  and  he  will  go  on  patient  and  uncom 
plaining;  but  snow  goes  against  his  nature.  We 
began  to  leave  the  world  below  —  the  camps,  the 
clouds  of  smoke,  and  the  rich  smell  of  the  burning 
juniper  and  manzanita. 

The  pines  were  open  on  this  side  of  the  mount 
ain,  so  that  sometimes  we  could  see  through  the 
trees  to  the  world  without  and  below.  Over 
against  us  stood  Shasta.  Grander,  nearer,  now  he 
seemed  than  ever,  covered  with  snow  from  base  to 
crown. 

5 


66  MY   OWN   STORY. 

If  you  would  see  any  mountain  in  its  glory, 
you  must  go  up  a  neighboring  mountain,  and  see 
it  above  the  forests  and  lesser  heights.  You  must 
see  a  mountain  with  the  clouds  below  you  and 
between  you  and  the  object  of  contemplation. 

Until  you  have  seen  a  mountain  over  the  tops 
and  crests  of  a  sea  of  clouds,  you  have  not  seen, 
and  cannot  understand,  the  sublime  and  majestic 
scenery  of  the  Pacific. 

Never,  until  on  some  day  of  storms  in  the  lower 
world  you  have  ascended  one  mountain,  looked  out 
above  the  clouds,  and  seen  the  white,  snowy  pyra 
mids  piercing  here  and  there  the  rolling,  nebulous 
sea,  can  you  hope  to  learn  the  freemasonry  of 
mountain  scenery  in  its  grandest,  highest  and  most 
supreme  degree.  Lightning  and  storms  and  thun 
der  underneath  you;  calm  and  peace  and  perfect 
beauty  about  you.  Typical  and  suggestive. 

Sugar-pines,  tall  as  pyramids,  on  either  hand  as 
we  rode  up  the  trail,  through  the  dry,  bright  snow, 
with  great  burs  or  cones,  long  as  your  arm,  sway 
ing  from  the  tips  of  their  lofty  branches  ;  and  little 
pine  squirrels,  black  and  brown,  ran  up  and  down 
busy  with  their  winter  hoard. 

Once  on  the  summit,  we  dismounted,  drew  the 
cinches  till  the  mules  grunted  and  put  in  a  protest 


DOWN  AMONG  THE  DEAD.         67 

with  their  teeth  and  heels,  and  then  began  the 
descent. 

The  Prince  had  been  silent  all  day,  but,  as  we 
were  mounting  the  mules  again,  he  said  : 

"  We  may  have  a  rocky  time  down  there,  my 
boy.  The  grass  is  mighty  short  with  me,  I  tell 
you.  But  I  have  thought  it  all  out,  clean  down  to 
the  bed-rock,  and  this  is  the  best  that  can  be  done. 
If  we  can  manage  to  scratch  through  this  winter, 
we  will  be  all  right  for  a  big  clean-up  by  the  time 
snows  fly  over  again  ;  and  then,  if  you  like,  you 
shall  see  another  land.  There  !  look  down  there," 
he  said,  as  we  came  to  the  rim  of  a  bench  in  the 
mountain,  and  had  a  look-out  below,  "  that  is  the 
place  where  we  shall  winter.  Three  thousand  peo 
ple  there!  not  a  woman,  not  a  child!  Two  miles 
below,  and  ten  miles  ahead  !  " 

Not  a  woman  ?  Not  much  of  a  chance  for  a 
love  affair.  He  who  consents  to  descend  with  me 
into  the  deep,  dark  gorge  in  the  mountains,  and 
live  the  weary  winter  through,  will  see  neither  the 
light  of  the  sun,  nor  the  smiles  of  woman.  A  sort 
of  Hades.  A  savage  Eden,  with  many  Adams 
walking  up  and  down,  and  plucking  of  every  tree, 
nothing  forbidden  here;  for  here,  so  far  as  it  would 
seem,  are  neither  laws  of  God  or  man. 


68  MY   OWN   STORY. 

When  shall  we  lie  down  and  sleep,  and  awake 
and  find  an  Eve  and  the  Eden  in  the  forest  ?  —  an 
Eve  untouched  and  unstained,  fresh  from  the  hand 
of  God,  gazing  at  her  reflection  in  the  mossy 
mountain  stream,  amazed  at  her  beauty,  and  in  love 
with  herself;  even  in  this  first  act  setting  an  exam 
ple  for  man  that  he  has  followed  too  well  for  his 
own  peace. 

This  canon  was  as  black  as  Erebus  down  there 
—  a  sea  of  somber  firs;  and  down,  down  as  if  the 
earth  was  cracked  and  cleft  almost  in  two.  Here 
and  there  lay  little  nests  of  clouds  below  us, 
tangled  in  the  treetops,  no  wind  to  drive  them, 
nothing  to  fret  and  disturb.  They  lay  above  the 
dusk  of  the  forest  as  if  asleep.  Over  across  the 
canon  stood  another  mountain,  not  so  fierce  as 
this,  but  black  with  forest,  and  cut  and  broken  into 
many  gorges  —  scars  of  earthquake  shocks,  and 
saber-cuts  of  time.  Gorge  on  gorge,  canon  inter 
secting  canon,  pitching  down  toward  the  rapid 
Klamat  —  a  black  and  boundless  forest  till  it 
touches  the  very  tide  of  the  sea  a  hundred  miles 
to  the  west. 

Our  cabin  was  on  the  mountain  side.  Where  else 
could  it  have  been  but  on  the  mountain  top? 
Nothing  but  mountains.  A  little  stream  went 


DOWN   AMONG  THE'  DEAD.  69 

creeping  down  below  —  a  little  wanderer  among  the 
boulders  —  for  it  was  now  sorely  fretted  and  roiled 
by  the  thousands  of  miners  up  and  down. 

There  was  a  town,  a  sort  of  common  center,  called 
The  Forks;  for  here  three  little  streams  joined 
hands,  and  went  down  from  there  to  the  Klamat 
together.  Our  cabin  stood  down  on  the  main 
stream,  not  far  from  the  river. 

The  principal  saloon  of  The  Forks  was  the 
"  Howlin'  Wilderness;  "  an  immense  pine-log  cabin, 
with  higher  walls  than  most  cabins,  earth  floor,  and 
an  immense  lire-place,  where  crackled  and  roared, 
day  and  night,  a  pine-log  fire  that  filled  the  place 
with  perfume  and  warmth. 

There  was  a  tall  man,  a  sort  of  half  sport  and 
half  miner,  who  had  a  cabin  Close  to  town,  who 
seemed  to  take  a  special  interest  in  this  place.  He 
was  known  as  "  Long  Dan,"  always  carried  two 
pistols,  and  took  a  pride  in  getting  into  trouble. 

"  Look  here,"  said  Prince,  to  him  one  evening, 
after  he  had  been  telling  his  six-shooter  adventures, 
with  great  delight,  by  the  cabin  fire,  "  Look  here, 
Dan,  some  of  these  days  you  will  die  with  your 
boots  on.  Now,  see  if  you  don't;  if  you  keep  on 
slinging  your  six-shooter  around  loose  in  this 
sort  of  a  way,  you  will  go  up  the  flume  as  slick  as 


70  MY  OWN   STORY. 

a  salmon  —  die  with  your  boots  on  before  you 
know  it." 

Dan  smiled  blandly  as  he  tapped  an  ivory 
pistol-butt,  and  said,  "  Bet  you  the  cigars  I  don't! 
Whenever  my  man  comes  to  the  center,  I  will  call 
him,  see  if  I  don't,  and  get  away  with  it  too." 

Now,  to  understand  the  pith  of  the  grim  joke 
which  Dan  played  in  the  last  act,  you  must  know 
that"  dying  with  the  boots  on  "means  a  great  deal 
in  the  mines.  It  is  the  poetical  way  of  expressing 
the  result  of  a  bar-room  or  street  battle. 

Let  me  here  state,  that,  while  the  wild,  semi- 
savage  life  of  the  mines  and  mountains  has  brought 
forth  no  dialect  to  speak  of,  it  has  produced  many 
forms  of  expression  that  are  to  be  found  nowhere 
else. 

These  sharp  sword-cuts  are  sometimes  coarse, 
sometimes  wicked,  but  always  forcible,  and  driven 
to  the  hilt.  They  are  even  sometimes  strangely 
poetical,  and,  when  you  know  their  origin,  they 
carry  with  them  a  touch  of  tenderness  beyond  the 
reach  of  song. 

Take,  for  example,  the  last  words  of  the  old 
Sierra  Nevada  stage-driver,  who,  for  a  dozen  years, 
had  sat  up  on  his  box  in  storm  and  sun,  and  dashed 
down  the  rocky  roads,  with  his  hat  on  his  nose,  his 


DOWN  AMONG  THE  DEAD.         71 

foot  on  the  brake,  and  the  four  lines  threaded 
through  his  fingers.  ' 

The  old  hero  of  many  encounters  with  robbers 
and  floods  and  avalanches  in  the  Sierras,  was  dying 
now.  His  friends  gathered  around  him  to  say  fare 
well.  He  half  raised  his  head,  lifted  his  hands  as 
if  still  at  his  post,  and  said: 

"  Boys,  I  am  on  the  down  grade,  and  can't  reach 
the  brake!  "  and  sank  down  and  died. 

And  so  it  is  that  "  the  down  grade,"  an  expres 
sion  born  of  the  death  of  the  old  stage-driver,  has 
a  meaning  with  us  now. 

A  Saturday  or  so  after  the  conversation  alluded  to 
between  Long  Dan  and  the  Prince,  there  were  heard 
pistol-shots  in  the  direction  of  the  Howlin'  Wilder 
ness  saloon,  and  most  of  the  men  rushed  forth  to 
see  what  Jonah,  fate  had  pitched  upon  to  be  thrown 
into  the  sea  of  eternity,  and  be  the  "  man  for  break 
fast  "  this  time. 

Nothing  "  draws  "  like  a  bar-room  fight  of  Cali 
fornia.  It  is  a  sudden  thing.  Sharp  and  quick 
come  the  keen  reports,  and  the  affair  has  the  ad 
vantage  of  being  quite  over  by  the  time  you  reach 
the  spot,  and  all  danger  of  serving  the  place  of 
barricades  for  a  stray  bullet  is  past. 

I  have  known  miners  standing  on    their  good 


72  MY   OWN   STORY. 

behavior,  who  resisted  the  temptations  of  hurdy- 
gurdy  houses,  bull-fights,  and  bull  and  bear  en 
counters,  who  always  wrote  home  on  Sundays, 
read  old  letters,  and  said  the  Lord's  prayer;  but  I 
never  yet  knew  one  who  could  help  going  to  see 
the  dead  man,  or  the  scene  of  the  six-shooter  war- 
dance,  whenever  the  shots  were  heard. 

The  Prince  rushed  up.  The  house  was  full;  surg 
ing  and  excited  men  with  their  hats  knocked  off, 
their  faces  red  with  passion,  and  their  open  red 
shirts  showing  their  strong,  hairy  bosoms. 

"  It  is  Long  Dan,"  some  one  called  out;  and  this 
made  the  Prince,  who  was  his  neighbor,  push  his 
way  more  eagerly  through  the  men.  He  reached 
the  wounded  man  at  last,  and  the  crowd,  who  knew 
the  Prince  as  an  acquaintance  of  the  sufferer,  fell 
back  and  gave  him  a  place  at  his  side. 

The  proprietors  of  the  Howlin'  Wilderness  had 
set  up  the  monte  table,  which  had  been  overthrown 
in  the  struggle,  and  laid  the  dying  Dan  gently  there 
with  an  old  soldier  overcoat  under  his  head. 

When  the  Prince  took  up  the  helpless  hand  of 
the  poor  fellow,  so  overthrown  in  his  pride  and 
strength,  and  spoke  to  him,  he  slowly  opened  his 
eyes,  looked  straight  at  the  Prince  with  a  smile, 
only  perceptible,  hardly  as  distinct  as  the  tear  in 


TRINCE,  PRINCE,  OLD  BOY,  I'VE  WON  THE  CIGARS.' 


DOWN  AMONG  THE  DEAD.         73 

his  eye,  and  said,  in  a  whisper,  as  he  drew  the 
Prince  down  to  his  face: 

"  Old  fellow,  Prince,  old  boy,  take  off  my 
boots." 

The  Prince  hastened  to  obey,  and  again  took  his 
place  at  his  side. 

Again  Long  Dan  drew  him  down,  and  said, 
huskily: 

"  Prince,  Prince,  old  boy,  I've  won  the  cigars! 
I've  won  'em,  by  the  holy  poker!" 

And  so  he  died. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SNOW!  NOTHING  BUT  SNOW! 

SUCH  fearful  scenes  were  the  chief  diversions  of 
the  camp.  True,  the  miners  did  not,  as  a  rule, 
take  part  in  these  bloody  carnivals,  but  were  rather 
the  spectators  in  the  circus.  The  men  at  The 
Forks,  gamblers  and  the  like,  were  the  gladia 
tors. 

Of  course,  we  had  some  few  papers,  very  old 
ones,  and  there  were  some  few  novels  on  the  creek; 
but  there  was  no  place  of  amusement,  no  neigh 
bors  with  entertaining  families,  nothing  but  the 
monotony  of  camp  and  cabin  life  of  the  most  un 
gracious  kind. 

We  had  a  claim  down  among  the  boulders, 
boulders  as  big  as  a  barn,  at  the  base  of  the  cabin, 
in  the  creek;  but,  if  it  contained  any  gold  worth 
mentioning,  we  had  not  yet  had  any  real  evidence 
of  it. 

We  toiled  —  let  that  be  understood  —  we  two  to 
gether.  I,  of  course,  was  not  strong,  and  not  worth 
much;  but  he,  from  dawn  till  dark,  never  took  rest 
at  all.  He  was  in  earnest  —  thoughtful  man  now.. 

(74) 


SNOW!    NOTHING   BUT  SNOW!  75 

He  was  working  on  a  new  problem,  and  was  con 
cerned.  Often  at  night,  by  the  light  of  the  pine- 
log  fire,  I  would  see  the  severe  lines  of  thought 
across  his  splendid  face,  and  wished  that  I,  too,  was 
a  strong  man,  and  such  a  man  as  this. 

It  was  a  severe  and  cruel  winter.  I  remember  one 
Sunday  I  went  down  to  the  claim  and  found  a  lot 
of  Californian  quails  frozen  to  death  in  the  snow. 
They  had  huddled  up  close  as  possible;  tried  to  keep 
warm,  but  perished  there,  every  one.  Maybe  this 
was  because  we  had  cut  away  all  the  underbrush 
up  and  down  the  creek,  and  let  in  the  cold  and  snow, 
and  left  the  birds  without  a  shelter. 

The  Prince  was  entirely  without  money  now,  and 
anything  in  the  shape  of  food  was  fifty  cents  and  a 
dollar  a  pound.  It  was  a  great  fall  from  his  grand  life 
the  year  before.  It  remained  to  be  seen  if  he  would 
be  consumed  in  the  fire,  or  would  come  out  only 
brightened  and  beautified. 

The  cold  weather  grew  sharply  colder.  One 
morning  when  I  arose  and  went  down  to  the  stream 
to  wash  my  hands  and  face,  and  snuff  the  keen, 
crisp  air,  the  rushing  mountain  stream  was  still ; 
not  even  the  plunge  and  gurgle  underneath  the 
ice.  It  was  frozen  stiff,  and  laid  out  in  a  long  white 
shroud  of  frost  and  ice,  and  fairy-work  by  delicate 


/6  MY   OWN   STORY. 

hands,  was  done  all  along  the  border ;  but  the  stream 
was  still  —  dead,  utterly  dead. 

The  strip  of  sky  that  was  visible  above  us  grew 
dark  and  leaden.  Some  birds  flew  frightened  past, 
crossing  the  canon  above  our  heads  and  seeking 
shelter;  and  squirrels  ran  up  and  down  the  pines 
and  frozen  hillsides  in  silence  and  in  haste.  We 
instinctively,  like  the  birds,  began  to  prepare  for 
the  storm,  and  stored  in  wood  all  day  till  a  whole 
corner  of  the  cabin  was  filled  with  logs  of  pine  and 
fir,  sweet-smelling  juniper  and  manzanita  to  kindle 
with,  and  some  splinters  of  pitch,  riven  from  a 
sugar  pine  seamed  and  torn  by  lightning,  up  the 
hill. 

The  Prince  kept  hard  at  work,  patient  and  cheer 
ful  all  day,  but  still  he  was  silent  and  thoughtful. 
I  did  not  ask  him  any  questions  ;  I  trusted  this  man, 
loved  him,  leaned  on  him,  believed  in  him  solely. 
It  was  strange,  and  yet  not  strange,  considering 
my  fervid,  passionate  nature,  my  inexperience,  and 
utter  ignorance  of  men  and  things.  But  he  was 
worthy.  I  had  never  seen  a  full,  splendid,  sin 
cere,  strong  man  like  this.  I  had  to  have  some  one 
—  something  —  to  love  ;  it  was  a  necessity  of  my 
nature.  This  man  answered  all,  and  I  was  satisfied. 
Had  he  called  me  some  morning  and  said,  "  Come, 


SNOW!   NOTHING  BUT   SNOW!  77 

we  will  start  north  now,  through  this  snow;"  or, 
"  Come,  let  us  go  to  the  top  of  Mount  Shasta,  and 
warm  us  by  the  furnace  of  the  volcano  there,"  I 
had  not  hesitated  a  moment,  never  questioned  the 
wisdom  and  propriety  of  the  journey,  but  followed 
him  with  the  most  perfect  faith  and  undoubting 
zeal  and  energy. 

The  next  morning  there  was  a  bank  of  snow 
against  the  door  when  I  opened  it.  The  trail  was 
level  and  obliterated,  Snow  !  snow  !  snow  !  The 
stream  that  had  lain  all  day  in  state,  in  its  shroud 
of  frost  and  fairy- work,  was  buried  now,  and  beside 
the  grave,  the  elder  and  yew  along  the  bank  bent 
their  heads  and  drooped  their  limbs  in  sad  and 
beautiful  regret  ;  a  patient,  silent  sorrow. 

Over  across  from  the  cabin  the  mountain  side 
shot  up  at  an  angle  almost  frightful  to  look  upon, 
till  it  lost  its  pine-covered  summit  in  the  clouds, 
and  lay  now  a  slanting  sheet  of  snow. 

The  trees  had  surrendered  to  the  snow.  They  no 
longershook  theirsable  plumes,  or  tossed  their  heads 
at  all.  Theirlimbs  reached  out  no  more  triumphant 
in  the  storm,  but  drooped  and  hung  in  silence  at 
their  sides — quiet,  patient,  orderly  as  soldiers  in  a 
line,  with  grounded  arms.  Back  of  us  the  same 
scene  was  lifted  to  the  clouds. 


78  MY   OWN   STORY. 

Snow!  snow!  snow!  nothing  but  snow!  To 
right  and  to  left,  up  and  down  the  buried  stream, 
were  cabins  covered  with  snow,  white  and  cold  as 
tombs  and  stones  of  marble  in  a  churchyard. 

And  still  the  snow  came  down  steadily  and  white, 
in  flakes  like  feathers.  It  did  not  blow  or  bluster 
about  as  if  it  wanted  to  assert  itself.  It  seemed  as 
if  it  already  had  absolute  control;  rather  like  a 
king,  who  knows  that  all  must  and  will  bow  down 
before  him. 

Steady  and  still,  strong  and  stealthy,  it  came 
upon  us  and  possessed  the  earth.  Not  even  a  bird 
was  heard  to  chirp,  or  a  squirrel  to  chatter  a  protest 
now.  High  over  head,  in  the  clouds  as  it  seemed, 
or  rather  back  of  us  a  little,  on  the  steep  and  stu 
pendous  mountain,  it  is  true  a  coyote  lifted  his  nose 
to  the  snow,  and  called  out  dolefully;  but  that,  may 
be,  was  a  call  to  his  mate  across  the  canon,  in  the 
clouds  on  the  hill-top  opposite.  That  was  all  that 
could  be  heard. 

The  trail  was  blocked,  and  the  butcher  came  no 
more.  This  was  a  sad  thing  to  us.  I  know  that 
more  than  once  that  morning  the  Prince  went  to  the 
door  and  looked  up  sharply  toward  the  point  where 
the  mule  made  his  appearance  when  the  trail  was 
open,  and  that  his  face  expressed  uncommon  con- 


SNOW!   NOTHING   BUT   SNOW!  79 

cern  when  he  had  settled  in  his  mind  that  the  beef 
supply  was  at  an  end. 

It  is  pretty  certain  that  the  two  butchers  had 
been  waiting  for  some  good  excuse  to  shut  up  shop 
without  offending  the  miners,  until  their  claims 
should  be  opened  in  the  spring.  This  they  now 
had,  and  at  once  took  advantage  of  the  opportu 
nity. 

We  could  mine  no  more,  could  pick-and-shovel  no 
more,  with  frosty  fingers,  in  the  frozen  ground,  by 
the  pine-log  fire,  down  by  the  complaining,  troubled 
little  stream.  The  mine  was  buried  with  the 
brook. 

That  stream  had  never  seemed  satisfied  before. 
It  ran,  and  foamed,  and  fretted,  hurried  and  hid 
under  the  boughs  and  bushes,  held  onto  the  roots 
and  grasses,  and  lifted  little  white  hands  as  it  ran 
toward  the  Klamat,  a  stronger  and  braver  brother, 
as  if  there  were  grizzlies  up  the  gorge  where  it  came 
from.  At  best,  it  had  but  a  sorry  time,  even  before 
the  miners  came.  It  had  to  wedge  itself  in  between 
the  foot-hills,  and  elbow  its  way  for  every  inch  of 
room.  It  was  kicked  and  cudgeled  from  this  foot 
hill  to  that;  it  ran  from  side  to  side,  and  worked,  and 
wound,  and  curved,  and  cork-screwed  on  in  a  way 
that  had  made  an  angler  sorry.  Maybe,  after  all,  it 


80  MY  OWN   STORY. 

was  glad  to  fold  its  little  icy  hands  across  its  fretted 
breast,  and  rest,  and  rest,  and  rest,  stiff  and  still, 
beneath  the  snow,  below  the  pines  and  yew  and 
cedar  trees  that  bent  their  heads  in  silence  by  the 
sleeper.  Certainly  it  was  satisfied  now. 

The  Kanaka  sugar-mat  was  empty;  the  strip  of 
bacon  that  had  hung  in  the  corner  against  the  wall 
was  gone,  and  the  flour-sack  grew  low  and  sug 
gestive. 

Miners  are  great  eaters  in  the  winter.  Snuff  the 
fierce  frost  weather  of  the  Sierras,  run  in  the  snow, 
or  delve  in  the  mine  through  the  day,  and  roast  by 
a  great  pine  fire  through  the  evening,  and  you  will 
eat  like  an  Englishman. 

The  snow  had  fallen  very  fast;  then  the  weather 
settled  cold  and  clear  as  a  bell.  The  largest  and  the 
brightest  stars,  it  seemed  to  me,  hang  about  and 
above  Mount  Shasta  in  those  cold,  bright  winter 
nights  of  the  north.  They  seem  as  large  as  Cali 
fornia  lilies;  they  flash  and  flare,  and  sparkle  and 
dart  their  little  spangles;  they  lessen  and  enlarge, 
and  seem  to  make  signs,  and  talk  and  understand 
each  other,  in  their  beautiful  blue  home,  that  seems 
in  the  winter  time  so  near  the  summit  of  the  mount 
ain  blazing  on  this  awful  altar  eternally  to  the 
Eternal. 


SNOW!    NOTHING    BUT  SNOW!  8 1 

The  Indians  say  that  it  is  quite  possible  to  step 
from  this  mountain  to  the  stars.  They  say  that  their 
fathers  have  done  so  often.  They  lay  so  many  great 
achievements  to  their  fathers.  In  this  they  are  very 
like  the  white  man.  But  maybe,  after  all,  some  of 
their  fathers  have  gone  from  this  mountain-top  to  the 
stars.  Who  knows? 

We  could  do  nothing  but  get  wood,  cook,  and  eat. 
It  did  not  take  us  long  to  cook  and  eat. 

The  bill  of  fare  was  short  enough.  Miners  nearly 
always  lay  in  a  great  store  of  provisions  —  enough  to 
last  them  through  all  the  winter,  as  no  stores  or  sup 
ply  posts  are  kept  open  when  the  mines  are  closed,  as 
they  were  then.  With  us  that  was  impossible.  All 
the  others  up  and  down  the  stream,  with  few  excep 
tions,  had  complete  supplies  on  hand,  and  had  a  good 
and  jovial  time  generally. 

They  got  wood,  made  snow-shoes,  cleared  off 
race  tracks,  and  ran  races  by  hundreds  on  great 
shoes,  twelve  and  fifteen  feet  in  length,  or  made 
coasting  places  on  the  hillsides,  and  slid  down  hill. 

At  night,  many  would  get  out  the  old  greasy 
pack  of  cards,  sit  before  the  fire  and  play  innocent 
games  of  old  sledge,  draw  poker,  euchre  or  whist, 
while  some  would  read  by  the  pine-log  light.  Others, 
possessed  with  a  little  more  devilment  or  restless- 

6 


$2  MY   OWN   STORY. 

ness,  maybe,  or  idle  curiosity,  would  take  the  single 
deep-cut  trail  that  led  to  The  Forks,  and  bring 
up  down  at  the  crackling  fire-place  of  the  Howlin' 
Wilderness. 

One  morning  we  had  only  bread  for  breakfast. 
The  Prince  was  gloomy  and  silent  as  we  sat  down. 
He  did  not  remain  long  at  the  table.  He  arose 
and  stood  by  the  fire,  and  watched  my  relish  of 
the  little  breakfast  with  evident  satisfaction. 

"  Little  one,"  said  he,  at  last,  "  it  is  getting 
mighty  rocky.  I  tell  you,  the  grass  is  shorter 
than  it  ever  was  with  us  before,  and  what  to  do 
next  I  do  not  know." 

There  was  something  affecting  in  the  voice  and 
manner.  My  breakfast  was  nearly  choking  me, 
and  I  tried  to  hide  my  face  from  his.  I  got  up 
from  the  table,  went  to  the  door  anct  looked  across 
into  the  white  sheet  of  snow  hung  upon  the  mount 
ain  opposite,  got  the  air,  came  back,  kicked  the 
fire  vigorously,  and  turned  and  stood  by  his  side 
with  my  back  to  the  fire  also. 

The  weather  was  still  clear  and  cold.  There 
was,  of  course,  no  absolute  need  of  going  hungry 
there,  as  far  as  we  two  were  concerned,  if  we  had 
had  the  courage,  or,  rather,  the  cowardice,  to  ask 
for  bread. 


SNOW!    NOTHING   BUT   SNOW!  83 

But  this  man  was  a  proud  man,  and  a  complete 
man,  I  take  it;  and,  when  a  man  of  that  nature  gets 
cornered,  he  is  going  to  endure  a  great  deal  before 
he  makes  any  sign.  A  true  man  can  fight,  he  can  kill, 
but  he  cannot  ask  for  quarter.  Want  only  makes 
such  a  man  more  sensitive.  Distress  only  intensi 
fies  his  proud  and  passionate  nature,  and  he  prepares 
himself  for  everything  possible  but  an  appeal  to  man. 
Besides,  this  man  was  not  altogether  a  miner.  He 
had  never  felt  that  he  had  won  his  place  among  the 
brawny,  broad-shouldered  men,  who  from  the  first, 
and  all  through  life,  had  borne  and  accepted  the 
common  curse  that  fell  on  man  through  the  first 
transgression,  and  he  had  always  held  himself  some 
what  aloof. 

Perhaps  he  was  fighting  a  battle  with  himself. 
Who  knows?  It  seems  to  me  now,  although  I  had 
no  thought  of  such  a  thing  then,  that  he  had  made 
a  resolve  within  himself  to  make  his  bread  by  the 
sweat  of  his  brow,  to  set  a  good  example  to  one 
whom  fate  had  given  into  his  charge,  and  never  turn 
back  or  deviate  from  the  one  direction. 

What  that  man  must  have  felt  would  be  painful  to 
consider.  As  for  myself,  I  did  not  take  in  all  the 
situation,  or  really  half  of  it.  This  man,  somehow, 
stood  to  me  like  a  tower.  I  had  no  fear. 


84  MY    OWN   STORY. 

The  weather  was  still  intensely  cold.     That  after 
noon  the  Prince  said: 

"  Come,  we  will  go  to  town." 


CHAPTER   IX. 

• 

BLOOD   ON   THE   SNOW. 

THERE  was  a  tribe  of  Indians  camped  down  on 
the  rapid,  rocky  Klamat  River  —  a  sullen,  ugly  set 
were  they,  too:  at  least  so  said  The  Forks.  Never 
social,  hardly  seeming  to  notice  the  whites,  who 
were  now  thick  about  them,  below  them,  above 
them,  on  the  river  all  around  them.  Sometimes 
we  would  meet  one  on  the  narrow  trail;  he  would 
gather  his  skins  about  him,  hide  his  bow  and  arrows 
under  their  folds,  and,  without  seeming  to  see  any 
one,  would  move  past  us  still  as  a  shadow.  I  do 
not  remember  that  I  ever  saw  one  of  these  Indians 
laugh,  not  even  to  smile.  A  hard-featured,  half- 
starved  set  of  savages,  of  whom  the  wise  men  of  the 
camp  prophesied  no  good. 

The  snow,  unusually  deep  this  winter,  had  driven 
them  all  down  from  the  mountains,  and  they  were 
compelled  to  camp  on  the  river. 

The  game,  too,  had  been  driven  down  along  with 
the  Indians,  but  it  was  of  but  little  use  to  them. 
Their  bows  and  arrows  did  poor  competition  with 

the  rifles  of  the  whites  in  the  killing  of  the  game. 

(85) 


86  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  whites  had  fairly  filled  the  cabins  with  deer 
and  elk  in  their  season,  got  the  lion's  share,  and 
left  the  Indians  almost  destitute. 

Another  thing  that  made  it  rather  more  hard  on 
the  Indians  than  anything  else,  was  the  utter  fail 
ure  of  the  annual  run  of  salmon  the  summer  before, 
on  account  of  the  muddy  water.  The  Klamat, 
which  had  poured  from  the  mountain  lakes  to  the 
sea  as  clear  as  glass,  was  now  made  muddy  and 
turbid  from  the  miners  washing  for  gold  on  its 
banks  and  tributaries.  The  trout  turned  on  their 
sides  and  died;  the  salmon  from  the  sea  came  in 
but  rarely  on  account  of  this;  and  what  few  did 
come  were  pretty  safe  from  the  spears  of  the 
Indians,  because  of  the  colored  water;  so  that  the 
supply,  which  was  more  than  all  others  their  bread 
and  their  meat,  was  entirely  cut  off. 

Mine?  It  was  all  a  mystery  to  these  Indians  as 
long  as  they  were  permitted  to  live.  I  have  seen 
them  gather  in  groups  on  the  bank  above  the  mines 
and  watch  in  silence  for  hours  as  if  endeavoring  to 
make  it  out;  they  would  shrug  their  shoulders, 
draw  their  skins  closer  about  them,  and  stalk  away 
no  wiser  than  before. 

Why  we  should  tear  up  the  earth,  toil  like 
gnomes  from  sun-up  to  sun-down,  rain  or  sun, 


BLOOD    ON    THE    SNOW.  8/ 

destroy  the  forests  and  pollute  the  rivers,  was  to 
them  more  than  a  mystery — it  was  a  terror.  I 
believe  they  accepted  it  as  a  curse,  the  work  of 
evil  spirits,  and  so  bowed  to  it  in  sublime  silence. 

This  loss  of  salmon  was  a  greater  loss  than  you 
would  suppose.  These  fish  in  the  springtime 
pour  up  these  streams  from  the  sea  in  incalculable 
schools.  They  fairly  darken  the  water.  On  the 
head  of  the  Sacramento,  before  that  once  beautiful 
river  was  changed  from  a  silver  sheet  to  a  dirty 
yellow  stream,  I  have  seen  between  the  Devil's 
Castle  and  Mount  Shasta  the  stream  so  filled  with 
salmon  that  it  was  impossible  to  force  a  horse 
across  the  current.  Of  course,  this  was  not  usual, 
and  now  can  only  be  met  with  hard  up  at  the  heads 
of  mountain  streams  where  mining  is  not  carried 
on,  and  where  the  advance  of  the  fish  is  checked  by 
falls  on  the  head  of  the  stream.  The  amount  of 
salmon  which  the  Indians  would  spear  and  dry  in 
the  sun,  and  hoard  away  for  winter,  under  such 
circumstances,  can  be  imagined. 

What  made  matters  worse,  there  was  a  set  of 
men,  low  men,  of  the  lowest  type,  who  would  hang 
around  those  lodges  at  night,  give  the  Indians  whisky 
of  the  vilest  sort,  debauch  their  women,  and  cheat 
the  men  out  of  their  skins  and  bows  and  arrows. 


88  MY   OWN   STORY. 

Perhaps  there  was  a  grim  sort  of  philosophy  in 
the  red  man  so  disposing  of  his  bows  and  arrows 
now  that  the  game  was  gone  and  they  were  of  no 
further  use.  Sold  them  for  bread  for  his  starving 
babes,  maybe.  How  many  tragedies  are  hidden 
here?  How  many  tales  of  devotion,  self-denial, 
and  sacrifice,  as  true  as  the  white  man  ever  lived, 
as  pure,  and  brave,  and  beautiful  as  ever  gave 
tongue  to  eloquence  or  pen  to  song,  sleep  here 
with  the  dust  of  these  sad  and  silent  people  on  the 
bank  of  the  stormy  river! 

In  this  condition  of  things,  about  mid-winter, 
when  the  snow  was  deep  and  crusted  stiff,  and  all 
nature  seemed  dead  and  buried  in  a  ruffled  shroud, 
there  was  a  murder.  The  Indians  had  broken  out! 
The  prophesied  massacre  had  begun! 

Killed  by  the  Indians!  It  swept  like  a  telegram 
through  the  camp.  Confused  and  incoherent,  it  is 
true,  but  it  gathered  force  and  form  as  the  tale  flew 
on  from  tongue  to  tongue,  until  it  assumed  a  fright 
ful  shape. 

A  man  had  been  killed  by  the  Indians  down  at 
the  rancheria.  Not  much  of  a  man,  it  is  true. 

Killed,  too,  down  in  the  Indian  camp  when  he 
should  have  been  in  bed,  or  at  home,  or  at  least  in 
company  with  his  kind. 


BLOOD   ON  THE  SNOW.  89 

All  this  made  the  miners  hesitate  a  bit  as  they 
hurriedly  gathered  in  at  The  Forks,  with  their  long 
Kentucky  rifles,  their  pistols  capped  and  primed, 
and  bowie-knives  in  their  belts. 

But  as  the  gathering  storm  that  was  to  sweep  the 
Indians  from  the  earth  took  shape  and  form,  these 
honest  men  stood  out  in  little  knots,  leaning  on 
their  rifles  in  the  streets,  and  gravely  questioned 
whether,  all  things  considered,  the  death  of  the 
"  Chicken,"  for  that  was  the  dead  man's  name,  was 
sufficient  cause  for  interference. 

To  their  eternal  credit  these  men  mainly  decided 
that  it  was  not,  and  two  by  two  they  turned  away, 
went  back  to  their  cabins,  hung  their  rifles  up  on 
the  rack,  and  turned  their  thoughts  to  their  own 
affairs. 

But  the  hangers-on  about  the  town  were  terribly 
enraged.  "  A  man  has  been  killed!  "  they  pro 
claimed  aloud.  "  A  man  has  been  murdered  by  the 
savages!!  We  shall  all  be  massacred!  butchered! 
burnt!!" 

In  one  of  the  saloons  where  men  were  wont  to 
meet  at  night,  have  stag-dances,  and  drink  light 
ening,  a  short,  important  man,  with  the  print  of  a 
glass-tumbler  cut  above  his  eye,  arose  and  made  a 
speech. 


QO  MY   OWN   STORY. 

"  Fellow-miners  [he  had  never  touched  a  pick  in 
his  life],  I  am  ready  to  die  for  me  counthry!  [He 
was  an  Irishman  sent  out  to  Sydney  at  the  Crown's 
expense.]  What  have  I  to  live  for?  [Nothing 
whatever,  as  far  as  any  one  could  tell.]  Fellow- 
miners,  a  man  has  been  kilt  by  the  treacherous 
savages  —  kilt  in  cold  blood!  Fellow-miners,  let  us 
advance  upon  the  inemy.  Let  us  —  let  us  —  fellow- 
miners,  let  us  take  a  drink  and  advance  upon  the 
inemy. " 

"  Range  around  me.  Rally  to  the  bar  and  take 
a  drink,  every  man  of  you,  at  me  own  ixpense." 

The  barkeeper,  who  was  also  proprietor  of  the 
place,  a  man  not  much  above  the  type  of  the 
speaker,  ventured  a  mild  remonstrance  at  this  whole 
sale  generosity;  but  the  pistol,  flourished  in  a  very 
suggestive  way,  settled  the  matter,  and,  with  some 
thing  of  a  groan,  he  set  his  decanters  to  the  crowd, 
and  became  a  bankrupt. 

This  was  the  beginning;  they  passed  from  saloon 
to  saloon,  or,  rather,  from  door  to  door;  the  short, 
stout  Irishman  making  speeches,  and  the  mob 
gathering  force  and  arms  as  it  went,  and  then,  wild 
with  drink  and  excitement,  moved  down  upon  the 
Indians,  some  miles  away  on  the  bank  of  the  river. 

"  Come,"  said  the  Prince  to   me,  as  they  passed 


BLOOD   ON  THE  SNOW.  9 1 

out  of  town,  "  let  us  see  this  through.  Here  will  be 
blood.  We  will  see  from  the  hill  overlooking  the 
camp.  I  hope  the  Indians  are  armed  —  hope  to 
God  they  are  '  heeled,'  and  that  they  will  receive 
the  wretches  warmly  as  they  deserve." 

Maybe  his  own  wretchedness  had  something  to 
do  with  his  wrath;  but  I  think  not.  I  should  rather 
say  that,  had  he  been  in  strength  and  spirits,  and 
had  his  pistols,  which  had  long  since  been  disposed 
of  for  bread,  he  had  met  this  mob  face  to  face,  and 
sent  it  back  to  town. 

We  followed  not  far  behind  the  crowd  of  fifty  or 
sixty  men  armed  with  pistols,  rifles,  knives,  and 
hatchets. 

The  trail  led  to  a  little  point  overlooking  the  bar 
on  which  the  Indian  huts  were  huddled. 

The  river  made  a  bend  about  there.  It  ground 
and  boiled  in  a  crescent  blocked  with  running 
ice  and  snow.  The  Indians  were  out  in  the  ex 
treme  curve  of  a  horse-shoe  made  by  the  river,  and 
we  advanced  from  without.  They  were  in  a  net. 
They  had  only  a  choice  of  deaths  ;  death  by  drown 
ing,  or  death  at  the  hands  of  their  hereditary  foe. 

It  was  nearly  night  ;  cold  and  sharp  the  wind 
blew  up  the  river,  and  the  snow  flew  around  like 
feathers.  Not  an  Indian  to  be  seen.  The  thin 


92  MY   OWN   STORY. 

blue  smoke  came  slowly  up,  as  if  afraid  to  leave 
the  wigwams,  and  the  traditional,  ever-watchful 
and  wakeful  Indian  dog  was  not  to  be  seen  or 
heard.  The  men  hurried  down  upon  the  camp, 
spreading  out  upon  the  horse-shoe  as  they  ac- 
vanced  in  a  run. 

"  Stop  here, "  said  the  Prince  ;  and  we  stood  from 
the  wind  behind  a  boulder  that  stood,  tall  as  a 
cabin,  upon  the  bar.  The  crowd  advanced  to 
within  half  a  pistol  shot,  and  gave  a  shout  as  they 
drew  and  leveled  their  arms.  Old  squaws  came 
out  —  bang!  bang!  bang!  shot  after  shot,  and  they 
were  pierced  and  fell,  or  turned  to  run. 

The  whites,  yelling,  howling,  screaming,  were 
now  among  the  lodges,  shooting  down  at  arm's 
length  man,  woman,  or  child.  Some  attempted 
the  river,  I  should  say,  for  I  afterward  saw  streams 
of  blood  upon  the  ice,  but  not  one  escaped;  nor 
was  a  hand  raised  in  defense.  It  was  all  done  in 
a  little  time.  Instantly,  as  the  shots  and  shouts 
began,  we  two  advanced,  we  rushed  into  the  camp, 
and,  when  we  reached  the  spot,  only  now  and  then 
a  shot  was  heard  within  a  lodge,  dispatching  a 
wounded  man  or  woman. 

The  few  surviving  children  —  for  nearly  all  had 
been  starved  to  death — had  taken  refuge  under 


BLOOD   ON   THE   SNOW.  93 

skins  and  under  lodges  overthrown,  hidden  away 
as  little  kittens  will  hide  just  old  enough  to  spit  and 
hiss,  and  hide  when  they  first  see  the  face  of  man. 
These  were  now  dragged  forth  and  shot.  Not  all 
these  men  who  made  this  mob,  bad  as  they  were, 
did  this  —  only  a  few  ;  but  enough  to  leave,  as  far 
as  they  could,  no  living  thing. 

The  babies  did  not  scream.  Not  a  wail,  not  a 
sound.  The  murdered  men  and  women,  in  the 
few  minutes  that  the  breath  took  leave,  did  not 
even  groan. 

As  we  came  up  a  man  named  "  Shon  "  —  at 
least,  that  was  all  the  name  I  knew  for  him  —  held 
up  a  baby  by  the  leg,  a  naked,  bony  little  thing, 
which  he  had  dragged  from  under  a  lodge —  held 
it  up  with  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  blew  its 
head  to  pieces  with  his  pistol. 

I  must  stop  here  to  say  that  this  man  Shon  soon 
left  camp,  and  was  afterward  hung  by  the  Vigilance 
Committee  near  Lewiston,  Idaho  Territory;  that 
he  whined  for  his  life  like  a  puppy,  and  he  died  like 
a  coward  as  he  was.  I  chronicle  this  fact  with  a 
feeling  of  delight. 

He  was  a  tall,  spare  man,  with  small,  gray  eyes, 
a  weak,  wicked  mouth,  colorless  and  treacherous, 
that  was  forever  smiling  and  smirking  in  your  face. 


94  MY   OWN  STORY. 

Shun  a  man  like  that.  A  man  who  always  smiles 
is  a  treacherous-natured  coward. 

He  knows,  himself,  how  villainous  and  contempt 
ible  he  is,  and  he  feels  that  you  know  it  too,  and  so 
tries  to  smile  his  way  into  your  favor.  Turn  away 
from  that  man  who  smiles  and  smiles,  and  rubs  his 
hands  as  if  he  felt,  and  all  men  knew,  that  they 
were  really  dirty. 

You  can  put  more  souls  of  such  men  as  that 
inside  of  a  single  grain  of  sand  than  there  are  dimes 
in  the  national  debt. 

This  man  threw  down  the  body  of  the  child 
among  the  dead,  and  rushed  across  to  where  a  pair 
of  ruffians  had  dragged  up  another,  a  little  girl, 
naked,  bony,  thin  as  a  shadow,  starved  into  a  ghost. 
He  caught  her  by  the  hair  with  a  howl  of  delight, 
placed  the  pistol  to  her  head,  and  turned  around  to 
point  the  muzzle  out  of  range  of  his  companions 
who  stood  around  on  the  other  side. 

The  child  did  not  cry  —  she  did  not  even  flinch. 
Perhaps  she  did  not  know  what  it  meant  ;  but  I 
should  rather  believe  she  had  seen  so  much  of  death 
there,  so  much  misery,  the  steady,  silent  work  of 
the  monster  famine  through  the  village  day  after 
day  that  she  did  not  care.  I  saw  her  face  ;  it  did 


BLOOD   ON  THE   SNOW.  95 

not  even  wince.  Her  lips  were  thin  and  fixed,  and 
firm  as  iron. 

The  villain,  having  turned  her  around,  now  lifted 
his  arm,  cocked  the  pistol,  and  — 

"  Stop  that!  Stop  that,  or  die  !  You  damned 
assassin,  let  go  that  child,  or  I  will  pitch  you  neck 
and  crop  into  the  Klamat." 

The  Prince  had  him  by  the  throat  with  one  hand, 
and  with  the  other  he  wrested  the  pistol  from  his 
grasp  and  threw  it  into  the  river.  The  Prince  had 
not  even  so  much  as  a  knife.  The  man  did  not 
know  this,  nor  did  the  Prince  care,  or  he  had  not 
thrown  away  the  weapon  he  wrung  from  his  hand. 
The  Prince  pushed  the  child  behind  him,  and 
advanced  toward  the  short,  fat  Sydney  convict,  who 
>had  turned,  pistol  in  hand,  in  his  direction. 

"  Keep  your  distance,  or  I  will  send  you  to  hell 
across  lots  in  a  second." 

The  man  turned  away  cowed  and  baffled.  He 
had  looked  in  the  Prince's  face,  and  seen  his 
master. 

As  for  myself,  I  was  not  only  helpless,  but,  as 
was  always  the  case  on  similar  occasions,  stupid, 
awkward,  speechless.  I  went  up  to  the  little  girl, 
however,  got  a  robe  out  of  one  of  the  lodges  — for 
they  had  not  yet  set  fire  to  the  village  —  and  put 


96  MY   OWN   STORY.    • 

it  around  her  naked  little  body.  After  that,  as  I 
moved  about  among  the  dead,  or  stepped  aside  to 
the  river  to  see  the  streams  of  blood  on  the  snow 
and  ice,  she  followed  close  as  a  shadow  behind  me, 
but  said  nothing. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  sharp  yell,  a  volley  of  oaths, 
exclamations,  a  scuffle,  and  blows. 

"Scalp  him!  Scalp  him!  the  little  savage!  Scalp 
him  and  throw  him  in  the  river!  " 

From  out  of  the  piles  of  dead  somewhere,  no  one 
could  tell  exactly  where  or  when,  an  apparition  had 
sprung  up — a  naked  little  Indian  boy,  that  might 
have  been  all  the  way  from  twelve  to  twenty,  armed 
with  a  knotted  war-club,  and  had  fallen  upon  his  foes 
like  a  fury. 

The  poor  little  hero,  starved  into  a  shadow,  stood 
little  show  there,  though  he  had  been  a  very  Her 
cules  in  courage.  He  was  felled  almost  instantly 
by  kicks  and  blows;  and  the  very  number  of  his 
enemies  saved  his  life,  for  they  could  neither  shoot 
nor  stab  him  with  safety,  as  they  crowded  and 
crushed  around  him. 

How  or  why  he  was  finally  spared,  was  always  a 
marvel.  Quite  likely  the  example  of  the  Prince 
had  moved  some  of  the  men  to  more  humanity. 

When  the  crowd  that  had  formed   a  knot  about 


BLOOD   ON   THE   SNOW.  97 

him  had  broken  up,  and  I  first  got  sight  of  him,  he 
was  sitting  on  a  stone  with  his  hands  between  his 
naked  legs,  and  blood  dripping  from  his  long  hair, 
which  fell  down  in  strings  over  his  forehead.  He 
had  been  stunned  by  a  grazing  shot,  no  doubt, 
and  had  fallen  among  the  first.  He  came  up  to  his 
work,  though,  like  a  man,  when  his  senses  re 
turned,  and,  without  counting  the  chances,  lifted 
his  two  hands  to  do  with  all  his  might  the  thing  he 
had  been  taught. 

Valor,  such  valor  as  that,  is  not  a  cheap  or 
common  thing.  It  is  rare  enough  to  be  respected 
even  by  the  worst  of  men.  It  is  only  the  coward 
who  affects  to  despise  such  courage. 

This  boy  sat  there  on  the  stone  as  the  village 
burned,  the  smoke  from  burning  skins,  the  wild-rye 
straw,  willow-baskets  and  Indian  robes,  ascended, 
and  a  smell  of  burning  bodies  went  up  to  the  Indians' 
God  and  the  God  of  us  all,  and  no  one  said  nay,  and 
no  one  approached  him;  the  men  looked  at  him 
from  under  their  slouched  hats  as  they  moved  around, 
but  said  nothing. 

I  pitied  him.  God  knows  I  pitied  him.  I  was 
a  boy  myself,  alone,  helpless,  in  an  army  of  strong 
and  unsympathetic  men.  I  would  have  gone  up 
and  put  my  arms  about  the  wild  and  splendid  little 

7 


98  MY    OWN    STORY. 

savage,  bloody  and  desperate  as  he  was,  so  lonely 
now,  so  intimate  with  death,  so  pitiful!  if  I  had 
dared,  dared  the  reproach  of  men-brutes. 

There  was  a  sort  of  nobility  about  him;  his 
recklessness,  his  desire  to  die,  lifting  his  little  arms 
against  an  army  of  strong  and  reckless  men,  his 
proud  and  defiant  courage,  that  made  me  feel  at 
once  that  he  was  above  me,  stronger,  somehow 
better,  than  I.  Still,  he  was  a  boy,  and  I  was  a  boy 
—  the  only  boys  in  the  camp,  and  my  heart  went 
out,  strong  and  true,  toward  him. 

The  work  of  destruction  was  now  too  complete. 
There  was  not  found  another  living  thing  —  nothing 
but  two  or  three  Indians  that  had  been  shot  and 
shot,  and  yet  seemed  determined  never  to  die,  that 
lay  in  the  bloody  snow  down  toward  the  rim  of  the 
river. 

Naked  nearly,  they  were,  and  only  skeletons, 
with  the  longest  and  blackest  hair  tangled  and 
tossed,  and  blown  in  strips  and  strings,  or  in  clouds 
out  on  the  white  and  the  blood-red  snow,  or  down 
their  tawny  backs,  or  over  their  bony  breasts, 
about  their  dusky  forms,  fierce  and  tinconquered, 
with  the  bloodless  lips  set  close,  and  blue,  and 
cold,  and  firm,  like  steel. 

The  dead  lay  around  us,  piled  up  in  places,  limbs 


BLOOD   ON   THE   SNOW.  99 

twisted  with  limbs  in  the  wrestle  with  death;  a 
mother  embracing  her  boy  here;  an  arm  thrown 
around  a  neck  there;  as  if  these  wild  people  could 
love  as  well  as  die. 

In  the  village,  some  of  the  white  men  claimed  to 
have  found  something  that  had  been  stolen.  I 
have  no  idea  there  is  any  truth  in  it.  I  wish  there 
was;  then  there  might  be  some  shadow  of  excuse 
for  all  the  murders  that  made  up  this  cruel  tragedy, 
all  of  which  is,  I  believe,  literally  true;  truer  than 
nine-tenths  of  the  history  and  official  reports  writ 
ten,  wherein  these  people  are  mentioned  ;  and  I 
stand  ready  to  give  names,  dates,  and  detail  to  all 
whom  it  may  concern. 

Let  me  not  here  be  misunderstood.  An  Indian 
is  no  better  than  a  white  man.  If  he  sins  let  him 
suffer.  But  I  do  protest  against  this  custom  of 
making  up  a  case  —  this  custom  of  deciding  the 
case  against  him  in  favor  of  the  white  man,  forever, 
on  the  evidence  of  the  white  man  only;  even 
though  that  custom  be,  in  the  language  of  the  law, 
so  old  "  that  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to 
the  contrary." 

The  white  man  and  red  man  are  much  alike,  with 
one  great  difference,  which  you  must  and  will  set 
down  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter. 


100  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  Indian  has  no  desire  for  fortune  ;  he  has  no 
wish  in  his  wild  state  to  accumulate  wealth  ;  and  it 
is  in  his  wild  state  that  he  must  be  judged,  for  it  is 
in  this  condition  that  he  is  said  to  sin.  If  "  money 
is  the  root  of  all  evil,"  as  Solomon  hath  it,  then 
the  Indian  has  not  that  evil,  or  that  root  of  evil,  or 
any  desire  for  it. 

It  is  the  white  man's  monopoly.  If  an  Indian 
loves  you,  trusts  you,  or  believes  in  you  at  all,  he 
will  serve  you,  guide  you  through  the  country,  fol 
low  you  to  battle,  fight  for  you,  he  and  all  his  sons 
and  kindred,  and  never  think  of  the  pay  or  profit. 
He  would  despise  it  if  offered,  beyond  some  pres 
ents,  some  tokens  of  remembrance,  decorations,  or 
simplest  articles  of  use. 

Again,  I  do  vehemently  protest  against  taking 
the  testimony  of  border  Indians  or  any  Indians 
with  whom  the  white  man  comes  in  constant  con 
tact,  and  to  whom  he  has  taught  the  use  of  money 
and  the  art  of  lying. 

And  most  particularly  I  do  protest  against  taking 
these  Indians  —  renegades — who  affiliate,  mix  and 
strike  hands  with  the  whites,  as  representative 
Indians.  Better  take  our  own  "  camp  followers  " 
as  respectable  and  representative  soldiers. 

When  you  reflect  that  for  centuries  the  Indians 


BLOOD   ON  THE   SNOW.  IOI 

in  almost  every  lodge  on  the  continent,  at  almost 
every  council,  have  talked  of  the  whites  and  their 
aggressions,  and  of  these  things  chiefly,  and  always 
with  that  bitterness  which  characterizes  people  who 
look  at  and  see  only  one  side  of  the  case,  then  you 
may  come  to  understand,  a  little,  their  eternal 
hatred  of  their  hereditary  enemy  —  how  deeply 
seated  this  is,  how  it  has  become  a  part  of  their 
nature,  and,  above  all,  how  low,  fallen,  and  how 
unlike  a  true  Indian  one  must  be  who  leaves  his 
retreating  tribe  and  lingers  in  a  drunken  and 
debauched  fellowship  with  the  whites,  losing  all 
his  virtues,  and  taking  on  all  the  vices  of  his 
enemy. 

The  true  Indian  retires  before  the  white  man's 
face  to  the  forest  and  to  the  mountain  tops.  It  is 
very  true  he  leaves  a  surf,  a  sort  of  kelp  and  drift 
wood,  and  trash,  the  scum,  the  idlers,  and  the 
cowards  and  prostitutes  of  his  tribe,  as  the  sea  leaves 
weeds  and  drift  and  kelp.  But  the  true  Indian  is  to 
be  found  only  in  his  fastnesses  or  on  the  heights, 
gun  in  hand. 


CHAPTER  X. 

GIVE    US   THIS   DAY   OUR   DAILY   BREAD. 

THE  boy  had  not  moved.  I  believe  he  had  not 
lifted  his  eyes.  The  sharp  wind,  pitching  up  and 
down  and  across,  cut  him  no  doubt,  on  the  one 
hand,  while  the  burning  wigwams  scorched  him  on 
the  other;  but  he  did  not  move. 

The  Prince  had  stood  there  all  this  time  like  a 
king,  turning  sometimes  to  watch  this  man  or  that, 
but  never  going  aside,  never  giving  way  an  inch 
for  any  one.  They  went  around  him,  they  avoided 
him,  or  deferred  to  him  in  every  way  possible. 
From  the  very  moment  he  came  down  from  the 
bluff  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  they  saw  him 
in  their  midst,  they  felt  the  presence  of  a  master 
and  a  man. 

I  had  always  said  to  myself,  "This  man  is  of  royal 
blood.  This  man  was  born  to  lead  and  control." 
To  me  he  had  always  stood,  like  Saul,  a  head  and 
shoulders  above  his  fellows.  1  had  always  believed 
him  a  king  of  men,  and  now  I  knew  it. 

He  took  the  little  girl  by  the  hand,  folded  her 

robe  about  her  gently  as  if  she  had  been  a  Chris- 

(102) 


THE  PRINCE  SMILED.  STOOPED,  AND  PICKED  UP  His  CLUB,  AND  Pur  IT  IN  His  HAND. 


GIVE    US   THIS   DAY    OUR   DAILY   BREAD.      IO3 

tian  born,  looked  to  her  moccasins,  and  then  cast 
about  to  see  who  should  take  and  provide  for  the 
boy.  The  last  man  was  going  —  gone! 

There  was  a  look  of  pain  and  trouble  in  the  face 
of  the  Prince.  There  was  not  a  crust  of  bread  in 
the  cabin;  a  poor  place  to  which  to  take  the  two 
starved  children,  to  be  sure. 

The  cast  of  care  blew  on  with  the  wind;  then 
with  the  same  old  look  of  confidence  and  self-pos 
session  he  went  up  to  the  Indian  boy,  took  him 
by  the  thin  little  arm,  and  bade  him  arise  and 
follow. 

The  boy  started.  He  did  not  understand,  and 
then  he  understood  perfectly.  He  stood  up  taller 
than  before.  His  face  looked  fierce  and  bitter, 
and  his  hands  lifted  as  if  he  would  strike.  The 
Prince  smiled,  stooped  and  picked  up  his  club,  and 
put  it  in  his  hand.  This  conquered  him.  He 
stood  it  against  the  stone  on  which  he  had  sat,  took 
up  a  robe  that  lay  under  his  feet,  fastened  his  moc 
casin  strings,  and  we  moved  away  together  and  in 
silence. 

The  little  girl  would  look  up  now  and  then,  and 
endeavor  to  be  pleasant  and  do  cunning  things; 
but  this  boy  with  his  club  tucked  under  his  robe 
did  not  look  up,  nor  down,  nor  around  him. 


104  MY   OWN   STORY. 

There  were  some  dead  that  lay  in  the  way;  he 
did  not  notice  them.  He  walked  across  them  as  if 
they  had  been  clay.  What  could  he  have  been 
thinking  of  ? 

I  know  very  well  what  I  do;  how  unpopular  and 
unprofitable  it  is  to  speak  a  word  for  this  weak  and 
unfriended  people.  Fate  seems  to  have  the  matter 
in  hand,  for  in  the  last  decade  they  have  lost  more 
ground  than  in  the  fifty  preceding  years.  Cannon 
are  mounted  on  their  strongholds,  even  on  the 
summits  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Bayonets 
bristle  in  their  forests  of  the  north,  and  sabers  flash 
along  the  plains  of  the  Apache.  There  is  no  one 
to  speak  for  them  now,  not  one.  If  there  was  I 
should  be  silent. 

Game  and  fish  have  their  seasons  to  come  and  go, 
as  regular  as  the  flowers.  Now  the  game  go  to  the 
hills,  now  to  the  valleys,  to  winter,  now  to  the 
mountains,  to  bring  forth  their  young.  You  break 
in  upon  their  habits  by  pushing  settlements  here 
and  there.  With  the  fish  you  do  the  same  by  build 
ing  dams  and  driving  steamboats,  and  you  break 
the  whole  machinery  and  stop  their  increase.  Then 
the  Indians  must  starve,  or  push  over  onto  the 
hunting  and  fishing  grounds  of  another  tribe.  This 
makes  war.  The  result  is  they  fight  —  fight  like 


GIVE   US   THIS   DAY   OUR   DAILY   BREAD.      1 05 

dogs!  almost  like  Christians!  Here  is  the  whole 
trouble  in  a  nut-shell. 

Let  us,  sometimes,  look  down  into  this  thing 
honestly,  try  and  find  the  truth,  and  understand. 

Even  the  ocean  has  a  bottom. 

We  reached  the  cabin,  and  built  a  roaring  fire. 

"  Stand  your  club  there  in  the  corner,  Klamat," 
said  the  Prince  to  the  boy,  "  and  come  to  the  fire. 
This  is  your  home  now."  The  boy  understood  the 
signs  and  the  softened  speech,  and  did  as  he  was 
bid,  not  as  a  slave,  but  proud  and  unbending  as  a 
chief  in  council. 

The  little  girl  had  washed  her  hands  and  face, 
thrown  back  her  long,  luxuriant  hair,  and  stood 
drying  herself  by  the  fire,  quite  at  home. 

Two  more  mouths  to  feed,  and  where  was  the 
bread  to  come  from? 

Soon  the  Prince  went  out  and  left  us  there.  He 
returned  in  a  little  while  with  a  loaf  of  bread. 

Where  did  he  get  it?     I  never  knew. 

He  divided  it  with  a  knife  carefully  into  three 
pieces,  gave  first  to  the  Indian  boy,  then  to  the 
Indian  girl,  and  then  to  me.  Then  he  stood  there 
a  moment,  looked  a  little  embarrassed,  but  finally 
said  something  about  wood  and  went  out. 


106  MY   OWN   STORY. 

We  ate  our  bread  as  the  ax  smote  and  echoed 
against  the  pine-log  outside. 

A  certain  strong  magnet  attracts,  from  out  the 
grains  of  gold,  all  the  ironstone  and  black  sand  to 
itself.  It  seemed  there  was  something  in  the  nature 
of  this  man  that  attracted  all  the  helpless,  and 
weak,  and  worthless  to  his  side.  He  had  not 
sought  these  little  savages.  That  would  have  been 
folly,  if  not  an  absolute  wrong  to  them.  There 
was,  perhaps,  not  another  man  in  camp  as  little 
capable  of  caring  for  them  as  he. 

To  see  those  Indians  eat — daintily,  only  a  little 
bit  at  a  time,  then  put  it  under  the  robe,  stealthily, 
and  look  about  them;  then  a  memory,  and  the  head 
would  bend  and  the  eyes  go  down;  then  the  little 
piece  of  bread  would  be  withdrawn,  eyed  wistfully, 
a  morsel  broken  off,  and  then  the  piece  again 
returned  beneath  the  robe,  to  be  again  withdrawn, 
as  they  found  it  impossible  to  resist  the  hunger  that 
consumed  them. 

But  Indians  are  strangely  preservative,  and  these 
had  just  endured  a  bitter  school.  They  had  learned 
the  importance  of  hoarding  a  bit  for  to-morrow,  and 
even  the  next  morning  had  quite  a  piece  of  bread 
still.  How  could  they  suppose  that  any  one  would 


GIVE   US   THIS   DAY   OUR  DAILY   BREAD.     IO/ 

provide,  or  attempt  to  provide,  for  them  the  next 
day? 

The  Prince  came  in  at  last  from  the  dusk,  and  we 
all  went  out  and  helped  to  bring  the  wood  from  the 
snow. 

I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  suddenly  grew  vastly  in 
*  my  own  estimation  that  evening.  Up  to  this  time  I 
had  been  the  youngest  person  in  all  the  camp,  the 
most  helpless,  the  least  of  all.  Here  was  a  change. 
Here  were  persons  more  helpless  than  myself;  some 
one  now  that  I  could  advise,  direct,  dictate  to,  and 
patronize. 

There  must  be  a  point  in  each  man's  life  when 
he  becomes  a  man  —  turns  from  the  ways  of  a  boy. 

I  daresay  any  man  can  date  his  manhood  from 
some  event,  from  some  little  circumstance  that 
seemed  to  invest  him  with  a  sort  of  majesty,  and 
dignify  him,  in  his  own  estimation,  at  least,  with 
manhood.  A  man  must  first  be  his  own  disciple. 
If  he  does  not  first  believe  himself  a  man,  he  may 
be  very  sure  the  world  will  not  believe  it. 

We  sat  late  by  the  fire  that  night.  The  little 
girl  leaned  against  the  wall  by  the  fireside  and 
slept,  but  the  boy  seemed  only  to  brighten  and 
awake  as  the  night  went  on.  He  looked  into  the 
fire.  What  did  he  see?  What  were  his  thoughts? 


108  MY   OWN   STORY. 

What  faces  were  there?  Fire,  and  smoke,  and 
blood  —  the  dead! 

Down  before  the  fire  in  their  fur  robes  we  laid 
the  little  Indians  to  sleep,  and  sought  our  blankets 
in  the  bunks  against  the  wall. 

•Through  the  night  one  arose,  and  then  the  other, 
and  stirred  the  fire  silently  and  lay  down.  Indians 
never  let  their  fires  go  out  in  their  lodges  in  time  of 
peace.  It  is  thought  a  bad  omen,  and  then  it  is 
inconvenient,  and  certainly  not  the  thing  to  do  in 
the  winter. 

The  Prince  was  up  early  the  next  morning.  He 
could  not  sleep.  Why?  Starve  yourself  a  week, 
and  you  will  understand.  I  did  not  think  or 
ask  myself  then  why  he  could  not  sleep.  I  know 
now. 

He  went  to  town  at  daybreak.  Then,  when  we 
had  rolled  a  back-log  into  the  spacious  fire-place, 
and  built  a  fire  under  my  direction,  a  new  style  of 
architecture  to  the  Indians,  with  a  fore-stick  on  the 
stone  and  irons,  and  a  heap  of  kindling-wood  in  the 
center,  I  induced  Klamat  to  wash  his  face,  and 
helped  him  to  wash  the  blood  from  his  hair  in  a 
pan  of  tepid  water. 

The  little  girl,  without  any  direction,  made  her 
toilet,  poor  child,  in  a  simple,  natural  way,  with  a 


GIVE   US  THIS   DAY   OUR   DAILY   BREAD.      IOQ 

careful -regard  for  the  effect  of  falls  of  dark  hair  on 
her  brown  shoulders  and  about  her  face;  and  then 
we  all  sat  down  and  looked  at  the  fire,  and  at  each 
other  in  silence. 

Soon  the  Prince  returned,  and,  wonderful  to  tell, 
he  had  on  his  shoulder  a  sack  of.  flour. 

His  face  was  beaming  with  delight.  He  took 
the  sack  from  his  shoulder  gently,  set  it  on  the 
empty  flour-bench  in  the  corner,  as  carefully  and 
tenderly  as  if  it  had  been  a  babe — as  if  it  had  been 
his  own  firstborn. 

The  "  Doctor  "came  with  him.  Not  on  a  pro 
fessional  visit,  however,  but  as  a  friend,  and  to  see 
the  Indians. 

Now,  this  Doctor  was  a  character,  a  special  part 
of  The  Forks.  Not  a  lovely  part  or  an  excellent 
part,  in  the  estimation  of  eithersaloon-men  or  miners, 
but  he  filled  a  place  there  that  had  been  left  blank  had 
he  gone  away,  and  that  was  not  altogether  because 
he  was  the  only  doctor  in  the  place,  but  because 
he  was  a  man  of  marked  individuality. 

A  man  who  did  not  care  three  straws  for  the 
good  or  ill  will  of  man,  and,  as  a  consequence,  as 
is  always  the  fortune  of  such  men  when  they  first 
appear  in  a  place,  was  not  popular. 

He  was  a  small  man,  a  sort  of  an  invalid,  and  a 


IIO  MY   OWN   STORY. 

man  who  had  no  associates  whatever.  He  was 
always  alone,  and  never  spoke  to  you  if  he  could 
help  it. 

How  the  Prince  made  this  man's  acquaintance  I 
do  not  know.  Most  likely  he  had  gone  to  him 
that  morning  deliberately,  told  him  the  situation 
of  things,  asked  fcr  help,  and  had  it  for  the  asking. 
For  my  part,  I  had  rather  have  seen  almost  any 
one  else  enter  the  cabin.  I  did  not  like  him  from 
the  first  time  that  I  ever  saw  him. 

"  Come  here,  Paquita,"  said  the  Doctor,  as  he 
sat  down  on  the  three-legged  stool  by  the  fire,  and 
held  out  his  hand  to  the  Indian  girh  She  drew 
her  robe  modestly  about  her  bosom,  and  went  up 
to  the  man,  timid  but  pleasantly. 

I  knew  no  more  of  this  Doctor,  or  his  name, 
than  of  the  other  men  around  me. 

He  had  come  into  the  camp  as  a  doctor,  had  pill- 
bags  and  a  book  or  two,  and  was  called  the  Doctor. 

Had  another  doctor  come,  he  would  have  been 
called  Doctor  Brown,  or  Smith,  or  Jones,  provided 
that  neither  of  these  names,  or  the  name  given  him 
by  the  camp,  was  the  name  given  him  by  his 
parents.  I  know  a  doctor  who  wore  the  first 
beaver  hat  into  a  camp  and  was  called  Doctor  Tile. 
He  could  not  get  rid  of  that  name.  If  he  had  died 


GIVE   US  THIS   DAY   OUR  DAILY   BREAD.      Ill 

in  the  camp,  Doctor  Tile  would  have  been  the  name 
written  on  the  pine  board  at  his  head. 

"  I  will  bake  some  bread,  Doctor,  for  my  ba 
bies  ; "  and  the  Prince  threw  off  his  coat  and  rolled 
up  his  sleeves,  and  went  to  work.  He  opened  the 
mouth  of  his  burden  on  the  bunk,  thrust  in  his 
hand,  drew  out  the  yellow  flour  in  the  gold-pan, 
sprinkled  in  some  salt,  poured  in  cold  water  from 
the  bucket,  and  soon  had  a  luscious  cake  baking 
before  the  fire  in  the  frying-pan. 

Little  Klamat  meantime  had  retreated  to  his 
club,  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  corner,  with 
his  head  down,  but  at  the  same  time  watching  the 
Doctor  from  under  his  hair,  as  a  cat  watches  a 
mouse  ;  only  he  was  not  the  cat  in  this  case,  by  a 
great  deal. 

The  Doctor  talked  but  little,  and  then  only  in  an 
enigmatical  sort  of  a  way,  with  the  Prince.  He  did 
not  notice  me,  and  that  contributed  to  my  instinct 
ive  dislike.  Soon  he  took  leave,  and  we  four  ate 
bread  together. 

A  wind  came  up  the  Klamat  from  the  sea  that 
night,  soft  and  warm  enough  to  drip  the  icicles 
from  the  cabin  eaves,  and  make  the  drooping  trees 
along  the  river  bank  raise  their  heads  from  the 
snow  as  if  with  hope. 


112  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  Doctor  came  frequently  and  spent  the  even 
ing  as  the  weeks  went  by.  The  butchers'  mules 
came  braying  down  the  trail  erelong,  and  we 
needed  bread  and  meat  no  more. 

The  thunder  boomed  away  to  the  west  one  night 
as  if  it  had  been  the  trump  of  resurrection  ;  a  rain 
set  in,  and  the  next  morning  Humbug  Creek,  as  if 
it  had  heard  a  Gabriel  blovtf,  had  risen  and  was  rush 
ing  toward  the  Klamat  and  calling  to  the  sea.- 

Some  birds  flew  out,  squirrels  left  the  rocks  and 
kept  running  up  and  down  the  pines,  and  places 
where  the  snow  had  melted  off  and  left  brown  burs 
and  quills  and  little  shells.  The  backbone  of  the 
winter  storm  was  broken. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

SUNSHINE. 

THE  sunshine  follows  the  rain.  There  was  a  sort 
of  general  joyousness.  The  Prince  was  now  a  king, 
it  seemed  to  me.  He  had  fought  a  battle  with  fate 
against  him;  fought  it^  silent,  patient,  and  alone; 
he  had  conquered,  and  was  glad. 

The  great  hero  is  born  of  the  long,  long  struggle. 
Who  cannot  go  down  to  battle  with  banners,  with 
trumps  and  the  tramp  of  horses?  Who  cannot 
fight  for  a  day  in  a  line  of  a  thousand  strong,  with 
the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  him?  But  the  man  who 
fights  a  battle  coolly,  quietly,  patiently  and  alone, 
with  no  one  to  applaud  or  approve,  as  the  strife 
goes  on  through  all  the  weary  year,  and  after  all  to 
have  no  reward  but  that  of  his  own  conscience,  the 
calm  delight  of  a  duty  well  performed,  is  God's 
own  hero. 

He  is  knighted  and  ennobled  there,  when  the 
fight  is  won,  and  he  wears  thenceforth  the  spurs  of 
gold  and  an  armor  of  invulnerable  steel. 

We  went  down  again  among  the  boulders  in  the 
bed  of  the  creek.  The  Prince  swung  his  pick,  I 

8  (113) 


114  MY   OWN  STORY. 

shoveled  the  thrown-out  earth,  and  the  little  Indi 
ans  would  come  and  look  on  and  wonder,  and  lend 
a  hand  in  an  awkward  sort  of  a  way  for  a  few  min 
utes  at  a  time,  then  go  back  to  the  cabin  or  high 
up  on  the  hills  in  the  sun,  following  whatever  pur 
suit  they  chose. 

The  Prince  did  not  take  it  upon  himself  to  direct 
or  dictate  what  they  should  do,  but  watched  their 
natural  inclinations  and  actions  with  the  keenest 
interest. 

He  loved  freedom  too  well  himself  to  attempt  to 
fetter  these  little  unfortunates  with  rules  and  forms 
that  he  himself  did  not  hold  in  too  great  respect; 
and,  as  for  taxing  them  to  labor,  they  were  yet 
weak,  and  but  poorly  recovered  from  the  effects  of 
the  famine  on  the  Klamat. 

Besides,  he  had  no  disposition  to  reduce  them  to 
the  Christian  slavery  that  was  then  being  introduced, 
and  still  obtains,  up  about  Mount  Shasta,  wherever 
any  of  the  Indians  survive. 

The  girl  developed  an  amiable  and  gentle  nature, 
but  the  boy  showed  anything  but  that  from  the  first. 
He  always  went  out  of  the  cabin  whenever  strangers 
entered,  would  often  spend  days  alone,  out  of  sight 
of  everyone,  and  stubbornly  refused  to  speak  a  word 
of  English.  At  the  end  of  weeks  he  was  untamed 


SUNSHINE.  115 

as  ever,  and  evidently  untamable.  The  Prince 
had  procured  him  a  cheap  suit  of  clothes,  some 
thing  after  the  fashion  of  the  miner's  dress;  but  he 
despised  it,  and  would  only  wear  his  shirt  with  the 
right  arm  free  and  naked,  the  red  sleeve  tucked  in 
or  swinging  about  his  body.  He  submitted  to 
have  his  hair  trimmed, but  refused  to  wear  a  hat. 

The  first  great  epoch  of  his  civilized  life  was  the 
receipt  of  a  knife  as  a  gift  from  the  Prince.  It  was 
more  to  him  than  diamonds  to  a  bride.  He  kept 
it  with  him  everywhere;  slept  with  it  always.  It 
was  to  him  as  a  host  of  companions. 

Sometimes  he  talked  in  the  Indian  tongue  to  the 
girl,  but  only  when  he  thought  no  one  noticed  or 
heard  him. 

The  girl  was  quite  the  other  way.  She  took  to 
domestic  matters  eagerly,  learned  to  talk  in  a  few 
weeks,  after  a  fashion,  and  was  most  anxious  to  be 
useful.  She  had  a  singular  talent  for  drawing. 
One  day  she  made  an  excellent  charcoal  picture  of 
Mount  Shasta,  on  the  cabin  door,  and  was  delighted 
when  she  saw  the  Prince  take  pride  in  her  work. 
She  was  eager  to  do  everything,  and  insisted  on 
doing  all  the  cooking. 

She  had  a  great  idea  of  the  use  of  salt,  and  often 
an  erroneous  one.  For  instance,  one  morning  she 


Il6  MY   OWN   STORY. 

put  salt  in  the  coffee  as  well  as  in  the  beef  and 
beans.  I  think  it  was  an  experiment  of  hers  — 
that  she  was  so  anxious  to  please  and  make  things 
palatable,  she  put  it  in  to  improve  the  taste.  I 
can  very  well  understand  how  she  thought  it  all 
over,  and  said  to  herself,  "  Now,  if  a  little  pinch  of 
this  white  substance  adds  to  the  beans,  why  will 
it  not  contribute  to  the  flavor  of  the  coffee?  "  Once 
she  put  sugar  on  the  meat  instead  of  salt,  but  the 
same  mistake  never  happened  twice. 

I  must  admit  that  she  was  deceitful,  somewhat; 
not  willfully,  but  innocently  so.  In  fact,  had  any 
thing  of  importance  been  involved,  she  would  have 
stood  up  and  told  the  whole  simple  truth  with  a 
perfect  indifference  to  results.  She  did  this  once, 
I  know,  when  she  had  done  an  improper  thing,  in 
a  way  that  made  us  trust  and  respect  her.  But 
she  did  so  much  like  to  seem  wise  about  things  of 
which  she  was  wholly  ignorant.  When  she  had 
learned  to  talk  she  one  day  pretended  to  Klamat 
to  also  be  able  to  read  and  understand  what  was 
written  on  the  bills  of  the  butchers.  Her  ambition 
seemed  to  be  to  appear  learned  in  that  she  knew 
the  least  about.  But  all  that  is  so  much  like  many 
people  you  meet,  that  I  know  you  are  prepared  to 
call  her  half-civilized,  even  in  these  few  weeks. 


SUNSHINE.  117 

This  sort  of  innocent  deceit  is  no  new  thing,  par 
ticularly  in  women.  And  I  rather  like  it.  Go  on 
to  one  of  the  fashionable  streets  to-day  in  Amer 
ica,  and  there  you  will  find  that  the  lady  who  has 
the  least  amount  of  natural  hair  has  invariably  the 
largest  amount  of  artificial  fix-ups  on  her  head. 
This  rule  is  almost  infallible;  it  has  hardly  the  tra 
ditional  exception  to  testify  to  its  truth. 

And  I  am  not  sure  but  that  nature  herself  is  a 
little  deceitful.  The  dead  and  leafless  oaks  have 
the  richest  growth,  of  ivy,  as  if  to  make  the  world 
believe  that  the  trees  are  thriving  like  the  bay.  All 
about  the  mouths  of  caves,  all  openings  in  the 
earth,  old  wells  and  pits,  the  rankest  growths 
abound,  as  if  to  say,  here  is  no  wound  in  the  breast 
of  earth!  here  is  even  the  richest  and  the  choicest 
spot  upon  her  surface. 

To  go  further  into  a  new  field.  If  a  true  woman 
loves  you  truly,  she  fortifies  against  it  in  every  pos 
sible  way  as  a  weak  place  in  her  nature.  She 
tries  to  deceive,  not  only  the  world,  but  herself. 
To  keep  out  the  eyes  of  the  inquisitive,  she  would 
build  a  barricade  to  the  moon.  She  would  not  be 
seen  to  whisper  with  you  for  the  world.  Yet,  if  she 
loved  you  less,  she  would  laugh  and  talk  and  whisper 


Il8  MY   OWN   STORY. 

by  the  hour,  and  think  nothing  of  it.  I  like  such 
deceit  as  that.  It  is  natural. 

The  miners  were  at  work  like  beavers.  Up  the 
stream  and  down  the  stream  the  pick  and  shovel 
clanged  against  the  rock  and  gravel  from  dawn  un 
til  darkness  came  down  out  of  the  forests  above 
them  and  took  possession  of  the  place. 

The  Prince  worked  on  patiently,  industriously 
with  the  rest,  with  reasonable  success  and  first-rate 
promise  of  fortune.  The  pent-up  energies  of  the 
camp  were  turned  loose,  and  the  stream  ran  thick 
and  yellow  with  sediment  from  pans,  rockers,  toms, 
sluices  and  flumes. 

Spring  came  sudden  and  full  grown  from  the 
south.  She  blew  up  in  a  fleet  of  sultry  clouds  from 
the  Mexican  seas,  along  the  Californian  coast. 

At  first  she  hardly  set  foot  in  the  canon.  The 
sun  came  down  to  us  only  about  noontide,  and 
then  only  tarried  long  enough  to  shoot  a  few  bright 
shafts  through  the  dusk  and  dense  pine-tops  at  the 
banks  of  snow  beneath,  and  spring  did  not  like  the 
place  as  well  as  the  open,  sunny  plains  over  by  the 
city,  and  toward  the  Klamat  lakes.  But  at  last  she 
came  to  take  possession.  She  planted  her  banners 
on  places  the  sun  made  bare,  and  put  up  signs  and 
landmarks  not  to  be  misunderstood. 


SUNSHINE.  119 

The  balm  and  alder  burst  in  leaf,  and  catkins 
drooped  and  dropped  from  willows  in  the  water, 
till  you  had  thought  a  legion  of  woolly  caterpillars 
were  drifting  to  the  sea.  Still  the  place  was  not  to 
be  surrendered  without  a  struggle.  It  was  one  of 
winter's  strongholds.  He  had  been  driven,  day  after 
day,  in  a  march  of  many  a  thousand  miles.  He 
had  retreated  from  Mexico  to  within  sight  of  Mount 
Shasta,  and  here  he  turned  on  his  pursuer.  One 
night  he  came  boldly  down  and  laid  hands  on  the 
muddy  little  stream,  and  stretched  a  border  of  ice 
all  up  and  down  its  edges;  spread  frost-work,  white 
and  beautiful,  on  pick,  and  torn,  and  sluice,  and 
flume  and  cradle,  and  made  the  miners  curse  him 
to  his  beard.  He  cut  down  the  banners  of  the 
spring  that  night,  lamb-tongue,  Indian  turnip  and 
catella,  and  took  possession  as  completely  as  of 
old. 

But,  when  the  sun  came  up  at  last,  he  let  go 
his  hold  upon  the  stream,  took  off  his  stamp  from 
pick  and  pan,  and  torn,  and  sluice  and  cradle,  and 
crept  in  silence  into  the  shade  of  trees  and  up  the 
mountain  side  against  the  snow. 

And  now  the  spring  came  back  with  a  double 
force  and  strength.  She  planted  California  lilies, 
fair  and  bright  as  stars,  tall  as  little  flag-staffs, 


120  MY   OWN   STORY. 

along  the  mountainside,  and  up  against  the  winter's 
barricade  of  snow,  and  proclaimed  possession  abso 
lute  through  her  messengers,  the  birds,  and  we  were 
very  glad. 

Paquita  gathered  blossoms  in  the  sun,  threw  her 
long  hair  back,  and  bounded  like  a  fawn  along  the 
hills.  Klamat  took  his  club  and  knife,  drew  his 
robe  only  the  closer  about  him  in  the  sun,  and  went 
out  gloomy  and  somber  in  the  mountains.  Some 
times  he  would  be  gone  all  night. 

At  last  the  baffled  winter  abandoned  even  the 
wall  that  lay  between  us  and  the  outer  world,  and 
drew  off  all  his  forces  to  Mount  Shasta.  He 
retreated  above  the  timber  line,  but  he  retreated  not 
an  inch  beyond.  There  he  sat  down  with  all  his 
strength.  He  planted  his  white  and  snowy  tent 
upon  this  everlasting  fortress,  and  laughed  at  the 
world  below  him. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

"  A   MAN   FOR   BREAKFAST." 

"  Now,  that  we  have  got  an  alcalde,"  said  a 
man  one  day,  "  why  not  put  him  to  work?  " 

There  had  been  a  pretty  general  feeling  against 
those  who  took  part  in  the  murder  of  the  Indians 
by  the  miners,  and  this  man  who  was  always  boil 
ing  over  on  some  subject,  and  was  brimful  of 
energy,  went  and  laid  the  case  before  the  alcalde 
and  instituted  a  prosecution.  Here  was  a  sensation! 
The  court  sent  a  constable  to  arrest  a  prisoner  with 
a  verbal  warrant,  and  the  man  came  into  "  court," 
followed  by  half  the  town,  gave  verbal  bonds  for 
his  appearance-next  Sunday,  and  the  court  adjourned 
to  that  day. 

Sides  were  taken  at  once.  The  idlers,  of  course, 
all  taking  sides  with  the  prisoner;  the  miners  mostly 
going  the  other  way.  The  assassins  were  active  in 
getting  evidence  out  of  the  way,  making  friends 
with  the  alcalde,  and  intimidating  all  who  dared 
express  sympathy  with  the  Indians. 

The  Indian  boy  came  home  that  night,  beaming 
with  delight.  His  black  eyes  flashed  like  the  eyes 

(MI) 


122  MY   OWN   STORY. 

of  a  cat  in  the  dark.  He  had  always  seemed  so 
passive  and  sullen,  that  we  had  come  to  believe  he 
had  no  life  or  passion  in  him. 

He  talked  to  Paquita  eagerly,  and  made  all 
kinds  of  gestures;  put  his  fingers  about  his  neck, 
stabbed  himself  with  an  imaginary  knife,  threw 
himself  toward  the  fire,  and  shot,  with  an  imagi 
nary  gun  at  an  imaginary  prisoner.  Would  he  be 
hung,  stabbed,  burnt  or  shot?  The  boy  was  so 
eager  and  excited  that  once  or  twice  he  broke  out 
into  pretty  fair  English  at  some  length,  the  first  he 
had  ever  been  heard  to  utter. 

The  Doctor  was  unpopular.  In  fact,  doctors 
usually  are  in  the  mines.  Whether  this  is 
because  nine-tenths  of  those  who  are  there  are 
impostors,  or  whether  it  is  because  miners  give 
open  expression  to  a  natural  dislike  that  strong  men 
feel  for  the  man  to  whose  ministry  we  all  have  to 
submit  ourselves  some  day,  I  do  not  pretend  to  say. 

Even  the  Indian  boy  disliked  the  Doctor  bitterly, 
and  one  day  flew  at  him,  without  any  cause,  and 
clutched  a  handful  of  hair  from  his  half-bald  head. 
The  alcalde,  too,  disliked  the  Doctor,  and  only  the 
evening  before  the  trial  some  one,  passing  the 
cabin,  heard  the  alcalde  call  the  Doctor  a  fool  to 
his  teeth.  *• 


123 

That  was  a  feather  in  the  alcalde's  hat,  in  the 
eyes  of  The  Forks,  but  a  bad  sign  for  the  Doctor. 
The  Doctor  should  have  knocked  him  down,  said 
The  Forks. 

The  day  of  the  trial  came,  and  the  big  prose 
cutor,  in  respect  for  the  court  and  the  occasion,  but 
toned  up  his  flannel  shirt,  hid  his  hairy  bosom,  and 
gave  over  his  gin  and  peppermint  during  all  the 
examination. 

The  prisoner  was  named  "  Spades."  Whether 
it  was  because  he  looked  so  like  the  black,  squatty 
Jack  of  Spades  I  do  not  know;  but  I  should  say 
he  was  indebted  to  his  likeness  to  that  right  or  left 
bower  for  his  name. 

There  was  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  had 
deliberately  murdered  two  or  three  Indian  children, 
butchered  them,  as  they  crouched  on  the  ground; 
but  there  were  grave  doubts  as  to  what  the  alcalde 
would  do  in  the  case,  for  he  had  teen  pretty 
plainly  told  that  he  must  not  hold  the  man  to 
answer. 

A  low,  wretched  man  was  this — the  lowest  in 
the  camp;  but  he  stood  between  others  of  a  more 
respectable  character  and  danger.  His  fortune  in 
the  matter  was  a  prophecy  of  theirs.  The  prisoner 
was  nearly  drunk  as  he  took  his  seat.  He  sat  with 


124  MY   OWN    STORY. 

his  hat  on.  In  fact,  miners,  in  the  matter  of  wear 
ing  hats,  would  make  first-class  Israelites. 

"  Ef  I  ain't  out  o'  this  by  dark,"  said  Spades,  as 
he  jerked  his  head  over  his  shoulder  and  spirted 
a  stream  of  amber  at  the  back-log,  "  I'll  sun  some 
body's  moccasins,  see  if  I  don't."  And  he  looked 
straight  at  the  alcalde,  who  settled  down  uneasily 
in  his  seat,  and  placed  his  new  beaver  hat  on  the 
table  between  himself  and  the  prisoner  as  a  sort  of 
barricade. 

Two  or  three  gamblers,  good  enough  men  in 
their  way,  acted  as  attorneys  for  Spades.  The  big 
prosecutor  proved  by  his  witnesses  how  Spades 
had  butchered  the  babes  down  on  the  Klamat,  in 
detail. 

The  other  side  did  not  ask  any  questions.  The 
attorneys  whispered  a  moment  among  themselves, 
and  then  one  of  them  got  up,  took  the  stand,  and 
gravely  asserted  that  on  that  day,  and  at  the  very 
moment  described,  he  was  playing  poker  with 
Spades  at  two  bits  a  corner.  Then  another  arose 
with  the  same  account ;  and  then  another.  It  was 
the  clearest  alibi  possible. 

This  was  the  first  attempt  to  introduce  law  prac 
tice  at  The  Forks,  and  no  wonder  that  it  did  not 
work  well,  and  that  some  things  were  forgotten. 


125 

All  were  new  hands  —  court,  counsel,  and  nearly 
all  present,  here  witnessed  their  first  trial. 

They  all  had  forgotten  to  have  their  witnesses 
sworn. 

The  testimony  being  all  in,  the  "Court  "pro 
ceeded  solemnly  to  sum  up  the  case.  In  conclusion, 
it  said,  "  You  will  observe  that,  as  a  rule,  the  fur 
ther  we  go  from  the  surface  of  things  the  nearer  we 
get  to  the  bottom.  "  This  brought  cheers  and  wav- 
ings  of  hats,  and  the  Court  repeated,  "  I  am  free  to 
say  that  the  Court  has  gone  diligently  into  the 
depths  of  this  case,  and  that,  as  a  rule,  the  further 
you  get  from  the  surface  of  things  the  nearer  you 
get  to  the  bottom.  The  case  looked  dark  indeed 
against  the  prisoner  at  first  ;  but  the  Court  has 
gone  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter  and  he  is  now 
white  as  snow. " 

"  Hear  !  hear  !  hear  !  "  shouted  a  man  from  Syd 
ney,  who  always  hobbled  a  little  as  if  he  dragged  a 
chain  when  he  walked. 

"  Snow  is  good  ! "  said  a  miner  between  his 
teeth,  as  he  looked  at  the  black  visage  of  the 
prisoner. 

"  You  see,"  continued  the  alcalde,  "  that  things 
are  often  not  so  black  as  they  first  appear,  partic 
ularly  if  they  are  only  fairly  washed." 


126  MY   OWN   STORY. 

"  Particularly  if  they  are  white-washed  !  "  said 
the  big  prosecutor,  as  he  turned  to  the  bar,  swal 
lowed  his  gin  and  peppermint,  and  left  the  saloon 
in  disgust. 

All  this  time  a  tawny  little  figure  had  stood  back 
in  the  corner  unseen,  perhaps,  by  any  one.  It  was 
Klamat  with  his  club.  He  had  watched  with  the 
eyes  of  a  hawk  the  whole  proceeding.  He  had 
drank  in  every  sentence,  and  had  never  once  taken 
his  eyes  from  the  Court  or  the  prisoner. 

When  the  alcalde  decreed  the  prisoner  free,  and 
the  Court  adjourned,  and  all  ranged  themselves  in 
a  long,  single  file  before  the  bar,  calling  out  "  Cock 
tail,"  "  Tom-and-Jerry,"  "  Brandy-smash,"  "  Gin- 
sling,"  "  Lightning  straight,"  "  Forty-rod,"  and  so 
on,  he  slipped  out. 

The  Doctor  quarreled  with  the  alcalde. 

"  That  little  doctor  '11  put  a  bug  in  his  soup  for 
him  yet,  see  'f  he  don't, "  said  some  one  that  evening 
at  the  saloon. 

"  All  right,  let  him,"  said  a  man,  who  stood  at 
the  bar,  in  gum-boots  and  with  a  gold-pan  under 
his  left  arm.  "All  right,  let  him,"  said  the 
bearded  sovereign,  as  he  threw  back  his  head  and 
opened  his  mouth.  "  It's  not  my  circus,  nor  won't 


"A   MAN   FOR    BREAKFAST/'  127 

be  my  funeral  ;  "  and  he  wiped  his  beard  and  went 
out  saying  to  himself: 

"  Fight  dog,  and  fight  bar, 
Thar's  no  dog  of  mine  thar." 

The  Prince,  with  that  clear  common-sense  which 
always  came  to  the  surface,  had  foreseen  the  whole 
affair  so  far  as  the  trial  was  concerned,  and  had 
remained  at  home  hard  at  work. 

The  next  morning  the  butcher  shouted  down 
from  the  cabin,  as  he  weighed  out  the  steaks  :  "  A 
man  for  breakfast  up  in  town,  I  say!  a  man  for 
breakfast  up  in  town,  and  I'll  bet  you  can't  guess 
who  it  is. " 

"Who?" 

"The  alcalde!" 

The  man  had  been  stabbed  to  death  not  far 
from  his  own  door,  some  time  in  the  night,  per 
haps  just  before  retiring.  There  were  three  dis 
tinct  mortal  wounds  in  the  breast.  There  had 
evidently  been  a  short,  hard  struggle  for  life,  for 
in  one  hand  he  clutched  a  lock  of  somebody's  hair. 
That  long,  soft,  silken,  half  curling,  yellow  German 
hair  of  the  Doctor's,  that  grew  on  the  sides  of  his 
head  —  there  was  not  to  be  found  another  lock  of 
hair  like  this  in  the  mountains. 

The  dead  man  had  not  been  robbed.      That  was 


128  MY    OWN   STORY. 

a  point  in  the  Doctor's  favor.     He  had  been  met  in 
the  front,  had  not  been  poisoned,  or  stabbed   or 
shot  in  the  back  ;  that  was  another  very  strong 
point  in  the  Doctor's  favor. 
*****#* 

As  a  rule,  a  funeral  in  the  mines  is  a  mournful 
thing.  It  is  the  saddest  and  most  pitiful  spectacle 
I  have  ever  seen.  The  contrast  of  strength  and 
weakness  is  brought  out  here  in  such  a  way  that 
you  must  turn  aside  or  weep  when  you  behold  it. 
To  see  those  strong,  rough  men,  long-haired, 
bearded  and  brown,  rugged  and  homely-looking, 
with  something  of  the  grizzly  in  their  great,  awk 
ward  movements,  now  take  up  one  of  their  number, 
straightened  in  the  rough  pine  box,  in  his  miner's 
dress,  and  carry  him  up,  up  on  the  hill  in  silence  — 
it  is  sad  beyond  expression. 

He  has  come  a  long  way,  he  has  journeyed  by 
land  or  sea  for  a  year,  he  has  toiled  and  endured, 
and  denied  himself  all  things  for  some  dear  object 
at  home,  and  now,  after  all,  he  must  lie  down  in  the 
forests  of  the  Sierras,  and  turn  on  his  side  and  die. 
No  one  to  kiss  him,  no  one  to  bless  him,  and  say 
"  good-bye,"  only  as  a  woman  can,  and  close  the 
weary  eyes,  and  fold  the  hands  in  their  final  rest: 
and  then,  at  the  grave,  how  awkward  —  how  silent! 


"  A    MAN   FOR   BREAKFAST."  129 

How'they  would  like  to  look  at  each  other  and  say 
something,  yet,  how  they  hold  down  their  heads,  or 
look  away  to  the  horizon,  lest  they  should  meet 
each  other's  eyes.  Lest  some  strong  man  should 
see  the  tears  that  went  silently  down  from  the  eyes 

of  another  over  his  beard  and  onto  the  leaves 

******* 

The  Doctor  had  appeared  out  of  place  in  this 
camp  from  the  first.  Every  one  seemed  to  feel 
that  —  perhaps  no  one  felt  it  more  keenly  than  him 
self. 

There  are  people,  it  seems  to  me,  who  go  all 
through  life  looking  for  the  place  where  they  be 
long  and  never  finding  it.  This  to  me  is  a  very 
sad  sight.  They  seem  to  fit  in  no  place  on  top  of 
the  earth. 

I  had  always  hated  and  feared  the  man  till  now. 
But  the  feeling  against  him  now  aroused  a  sort  of 
antagonism  in  my  nature,  that  always  has,  and  I 
expect  always  will,  come  to  the  surface  on  such 
occasions  on  the  side  of  the  despised,  perfectly  re 
gardless  of  propriety,  self-interest,  or  any  consider 
ation  whatever. 

If  a  man  has  succeeded  and  is  glad,  let  him  go 
his  way.  What  should  I  have  to  do  with  him? 

And  maybe,  often,  there  is  a  kind  of  subtle  wis- 


130  MY   OWN   STORY. 

dom  in  this  view  of  men.  I  think  it  is  born  -of  the 
fact  that  your  ostentatious,  prosperous  man,  your 
showy  rich  man  of  America,  is  so  very,  very  poor, 
that  you  do  not  care  to  call  him  your  neighbor. 
It  is  true  he  has  horses  and  houses  and  land  and 
gold,  but  these  horses  and  houses  and  lands  and 
coins,  are  all  in  the  world  he  has.  When  he  dies 
these  will  all  remain  and  the  world  will  lose  nothing 
whatever.  His  death  will  not  make  even  a  ripple 
in  the  tide  of  life.  His  family,  whom  he  has  taught 
to  worship  gold,  will  forget  him  in  their  new  estates. 
In  their  hearts  they  will  be  glad  that  he  has  gone. 
They  will  barter  and  haggle  with  the  stone-cutter 
toiling  for  his  bread,  and  for  astarve-to-death  price 
they  will  lift  a  marble  shaft  above  his  head  with  an 
iron  fence  around  it — typical,  cold,  and  soulless! 

Poor  man,  since  he  took  nothing  away  that  one 
could  miss,  what  a  beggar  he  must  have  been.  The 
poor  and  unhappy  never  heard  of  him:  the  world 
has  not  lost  a  thought.  Not  a  note  missed,  not  a 
word  was  lost  in  the  grand,  sweet  song  of  the  uni 
verse  when  he  died. 

It  was  remarkable  how  suddenly  the  Indian  chil 
dren  sprung  up  with  the  summer.  No  one  could 
have  recognized  in  this  neat,  modest,  sensitive  girl, 
and  this  silent,  savage-looking  boy,  who.  sometimes 


PAQIMTA. 


looked  almost  a  man,  the  two  starved,  naked  little 
creatures  of  half  a  year  before. 

There  was  a  little  lake  belted  by  wild  red  roses 
and  salmon  berries,  and  fretted  by  overhanging  ferns 
under  the  great  firs  that  shut  out  the  sun  save  in 
little  spars  and  bars  of  light  that  fell  through  upon 
a  bench  of  the  hills;  a  sort  of  lily  pond,  only  half 
a  pistol-shot  across,  at  the  bottom  of  a  waterfall,  and 
clear  as  sunshine  itself.  Here  Paquita  would  go 
often  and  alone  to  pass  her  idle  hours.  I  chanced 
to  see  her  there  on  the  rim,  walking  against  the  sun, 
and  looking  into  the  water  as  she  moved  forward, 
now  and  then  back,  across  her  shoulder,  as  a  maiden 
in  a  glass  preparing  for  a  ball.  She  had  just  been 
made  glad  with  her  first  new  dress  —  red,  and 
decorated  with  ribbons,  made  gay,  and  of  many 
colors.  The  poor  child  was  studying  herself  in  the 
waters. 

This  was  not  vanity;  no  doubt  there  was  a  deal 
of  satisfaction,  a  sort  of  quiet  pride,  in  this,  but  it 
was  something  higher,  also.  A  desire  to  study 
grace,  to  criticise  her  movements  in  this  strange, 
and  to  her,  lovely  dress,  and  learn  to  move  with  the 
most  perfect  propriety.  She  practiced  this  often. 
The  finger  lifted  sometimes,  the  head  bowed,  then 
the  hands  in  rest,  and  the  head  thrown  back,  she 


132  MY   OWN   STORY. 

would  walk  back  and  forth  for  hours,  contemplating 
herself,  and  catching  the  most  graceful  motion  from 
the  water. 

What  a  rich,  full,  and  generous  mouth  was  hers 
—  frank  as  the  noonday.  Beware  of  people  with 
small  mouths,  they  are  not  generous.  A  full,  rich 
mouth,  impulsive  and  passionate,  is  the  kind  of 
mouth  to  trust,  to  believe  in,  to  ask  a  favor  of,  and 
to  give  kind  words  to. 

There  are  as  many  kinds  of  mouths  as  there  are 
crimes  in  the  catalogue  of  sins.  There  is  the  mouth 
for  hash !  —  thick-lipped,  coarse,  and  expressionless, 
a  picket  of  teeth  behind.  Bah!  Then  there  is  the 
thin-lipped,  sour-apple  mouth,  sandwiched  in  be 
tween  a  sharp  chin  and  thin  nose.  Look  out! 

There  are  mischievous  mouths,  ruddy  and  full  of 
fun,  that  you  would  like  to  be  on  good  terms  with 
if  you  had  time;  and  then  there  is  the  rich,  full 
mouth,  with  dimples  dallying  and  playing  about  it 
like  ripples  in  a  shade,  half  sad,  half  glad  —  a  mouth 
to  love.  Such  was  Paquita's.  A  rose,  but  not  yet 
opened;  only  a  bud  that  in  another  summer  would 
unfold  itself  wide  to  the  sun. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

BONE   AND    SINEW. 

How  we  wrought!  the  Prince  and  I,  patiently 
and  industriously.  So  did  thousands  above  us  and 
below  us;  there  was  a  clang  of  picks  and  shovels, 
the  smiting  of  steel  on  the  granite,  a  sound  through 
the  sable  forests,  an  echoing  up  the  far  hill-sides 
like  the  march  of  an  army  to  battle,  clashing  the 
sword  and  buckler. 

Every  man  that  wrought  there,  worked  for  an 
object.  There  was  a  payment  to  be  met  at  home; 
a  mortgage  to  be  lifted.  The  ambition  of  one  I 
knew  was  to  buy  a  little  home  for  his  parents;  an 
other  had  orphan  sisters  to  provide  for;  this  had  an 
invalid  mother.  This  had  a  bride,  and  that  one  the 
promise  of  a  bride.  Every  miner  there  had  a  his 
tory,  a  plan,  a  purpose. 

Every  miner  there  who  bent  above  the  boulders, 
and  toiled  on  silently  under  the  dark-plumed  pines 
and  theshadowsof  the  steep  and  stupendous  mount 
ains,  was  a  giant  in  body  and  soul. 

Never  since  the  days  of  Cortez,  has  there  been 
gathered  together  such  a  hardy  and  brave  body  of 


134  MY  OWN  STORY. 

men  as  these  first  men  of  the  Pacific.  When  it  took 
six  months'  voyaging  round  the  Horn,  and  immi 
nent  perils,  with  like  dangers  and  delays,  to  cross 
the  isthmus  or  the  continent,  then  the  weak  of  heart 
did  not  attempt  it,  and  the  weak  of  body  died  on 
the  way.  The  result  was  a  race  of  men  worthy  of 
the  land. 

There  was  another  segregation  and  sifting  out 
after  the  Pacific  was  reached.  There  lay  the  mines 
open  to  all  who  would  work;  no  capital  but  a  pick 
and  pan  required.  The  most  manly  and  independ 
ent  life  on  earth.  At  night  you  had  your  pay  in 
your  hand,  your  reward  weighed  out  in  virgin  gold. 
If  you  made  five,  ten,  fifty,  or  a  thousand  dollars 
that  day,  you  made  it  from  the  fall  of  no  man;  no 
decline  of  stocks  or  turn  in  trade  which  carried 
some  man  to  the  bottom,  brought  you  to  the  top; 
no  speculation,  no  office,  no  favor,  only  your  own 
two  hands  and  your  strong,  true  heart,  without 
favor  from  any  man.  You  had  contributed  that 
much  to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  If  there  is 
any  good  in  gold,  you  had  done  that  much  good  to 

the  world,  besides  the  good  to  yourself. 

******* 

The  Doctor  in  the  meantime  ranged  around  the 
hill-sides,  wrote  some,  gathered  some  plants,  and 


BONE   AND    SINEW.  135 

seemed  altogether  the  most  listless,  wretched,  mis 
erable  man  you  could  conceive.  He  made  his  home 
in  our  cabin  now,  and  rarely  went  to  town  ;  for 
when  he  did  so,  some  one  of  the  hangers-on  about 
the  saloons  was  sure  to  insult  him.  Sometimes, 
however,  he  would  be  obliged  to  go,  such  as  when 
some  accident  or  severe  illness  would  compel  the 
miners  to  send  for  him,  and  he  never  refused  to 
attend.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  Spades,  half 
drunk  and  wholly  vicious,  caught  the  Doctor  by  the 
throat  as  he  met  him  in  the  trail  near  town,  and 
shook  him. 

Spades  boasted  he  had  made  his  old  teeth  rattle 
like  rocks  in  a  rocker.  The  Doctor  said  nothing, 
but  got  off  as  best  he  could  and  came  home.  He 
did  not  even  mention  the  matter  to  any  one. 

Shortly  after  this  Spades  was  found  dead.  He 
was  found  just  as  the  alcalde  had  been  found,  close 
to  his  cabin  door,  with  mortal  stabs  in  the  breast. 

There  was  talk  of  a  mob.  This  thing  of  killing 
people  in  the  night,  even  though  they  were  the 
most  worthless  men  of  the  camp,  and  even  though 
they  were  killed  in  a  way  that  suggested  something 
like  fair  play,  and  revenge  rather  than  robbery,  was 
not  to  be  indulged  in  with  impunity.  Some  of  the 
idlers  got  together  to  pass  resolutions,  and  take 


136  MY   OWN   STORY. 

some  steps  in  the  matter,  as  Spades  lay  stretched 
out  under  an  old  blue  soldier-coat  on  a  pine  slab 
that  had  many  dark  stains  across  and  along  its 
rugged  surface,  but  they  fell  into  an  exciting  game 
of  poker,  at  ten  dollars  a  corner,  and  the  matter 
for  the  time  was  left  to  rest.  No  Antony  came  to 
hold  up  the  dead  Caesar's  mantle,  and  poor  Spades 
was  buried  much  as  they  had  buried  the  alcalde  a 
short  time  before. 

Some  one  consulted  the  Giant  on  the  subject, 
about  the  time  of  the  funeral,  as  he  stood  at  the 
bar  of  the  Howlin'  Wilderness  for  his  gin  and  pep 
permint.  The  Giant  was  something  of  a  mouth 
piece  for  the  miners,  not  that  he  was  a  recognized 
leader  ;  miners,  as  a  rule,  decline  to  be  led,  but 
rather  that  he  knew  what  they  thougrft  on  most 
subjects,  and  preferred  to  act  with  them  and  ex 
press  their  thoughts,  rather  than  incline  to  the 
idlers  about  The  Forks.  He  drank  his  gin  in 
silence,  set  down  his  glass,  and  said  in  an  oracular 
sort  of  way,  as  if  to  himself,  when  passing  out  of 
the  door  : 

"  Well,  let  'em  rip  ;  it's  dog  eat  dog,  anyhow  !" 

But   it  was   evident  that  this   matter  would  not 

blow  over  easily.     True,  there  was  no  magistrate 


BONE  AND   SINEW.  137 

in  camp  yet,  but  there  was  a  live  sheriff  over  in  the 
city  and  the  sheriff  wanted  work. 

The  Doctor  went  on  as  usual,  avoiding   men   a 
little  more  than  before. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

A    STORM    IN   THE    SIERRAS. 

VIRGIN  gold,  like  truth,  lies  at  the  bottom.  It 
is  a  great  task  in  the  placer  mines,  as  a  rule,  par 
ticularly  in  the  streams,  to  get  on  the  bed-rock  to 
open  a  claim  and  strike  a  lead.  When  this  is  done 
the  rest  is  simple  enough.  You  have  only  to  keep 
your  claim  open,  to  see  that  the  drain  is  not 
clogged,  the  tail  race  kept  open,  and  that  the 
water  does  not  break  in  and  fill  up  your  excavation, 
by  which  you  have  reached  the  bed-rock.  All 
this  the  Prince  and  I  had  accomplished.  The 
summer  was  sufficiently  cool  to  be  tolerable  in  toil  : 
the  season  was  unusually  healthy,  and  all  was 
well. 

At  night,  when  the  flush  of  the  sun  would  be 
blown  from  the  tree  tops  to  the  clouds,  we  two 
would  sit  at  the  cabin  door  in  the  gloaming,  and 
look  across  and  up,  far  up,  into  the  steep  and  sable 
skirting  forest  of  firs,  and  listen  to  the  calls  of  the 
cat-bird,  or  the  coyote  lifting  his  voice  in  a  plaintive 
monologue  for  his  mate  on  the  other  side. 

Paquita,  who  at  such  times  sat  not  far  off,  had  a 

(138) 


A  STORM   IN  THE   SIERRAS.  139 

great  deal  to  tell  about  Mount  Shasta.  She  had 
been  on  the  side  beyond.  In  fact,  her  home  was 
there,  she  said,  and  she  described  the  whole  land 
in  detail.  A  country  sloping  off  gradually  toward 
the  east  and  south  ;  densely  timbered,  save  little 
dimples  of  green  prairies,  alive  with  game,  dotted 
down  here  and  there,  buried  in  the  dark  and  splen 
did  forests  on  the  little  trout  streams  that  wound  still 
and  crooked  through  wood  and  meadow. 

She  had  been  out  here  on  the  Klamat  on  a  visit, 
with  her  mother  and  others,  the  fall  and  winter 
before.  She  said  they  had  come  down  from  the 
lakes  in  canoes.  She  also  insisted  strongly  that  her 
father  was  a  great  chief  of  the  Modocs  and  mountain 
Shastas. 

Indians  are  great  travelers,  far  greater  than  is 
generally  believed,  and  it  was  quite  reasonable  to 

^ 

take  that  part  of  the  young  lady's  story  as  literally 
true  ;  but  the  part  about  her  father  being  a  great 
chief  was  set  down  as  one  of  her  innocent  fictions 
by  which  she  wished  to  dignify  herself,  and  appear 
of  some  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  Prince. 

Still  as  there  had  been  quite  a  sensation  in  camp 
about  new  mines  in  that  direction,  it  was  interesting 
to  talk  to  one  who  had  been  through  the  country, 
and  could  give  us  some  accurate  account  of  it.  After 


140  MY   OWN   STORY. 

that,  finding  the  Prince  was  interested  enough  to 
listen,  she  would  take  great  pleasure  in  describing 
the  country,  character  and  habits  of  the  Indians,  and 
the  kind  of  game  with  which  the  forest  abounded. 

She  would  map  out  on  the  ground  with  a  stick 
the  whole  country,  as  you  would  draw  a  chart  on 
the  black-board. 

The  feeling  against  the  Doctor  had  not  yet  blown 
over.  It  was  pretty  generally  understood  that  the 
sheriff  or  a  deputy  from  across  the  mountain  would 
soon  be  over  with  a  warrant  for  his  apprehension. 

Why  not  escape?  There  are  some  popular  errors 
of  opinion  that  are  amusing.  Men  suppose  that  if 
a  man  is  in  the  mountains  he  is  safe,  hid  away,  and 
secure;  that  he  has  only  to  step  aside  in  the  brush 
and  be  seen  no  more. 

As  a  rule,  it  is  safer  to  be  in  the  heart  of  a  city. 
Here  was  a  camp  of  a  few  thousand  men.  Each 
man  knew  the  face  of  his  neighbor.  There  was 
but  one  way  to  enter  this  camp,  but  one  way  to  go 
out;  that  way  led  to  the  city.  We  were  in  a  sac, 
the  further  end  of  a  cave,  as  it  were.  You  could 
not  go  this  way,  or  that,  through  the  mountains 
alone.  There  were  no  trails;  there  was  no  food. 
You  would  get  lost;  you  would  starve. 

Here,  in  that  day,  at  least,  if  a  man  did  wrong 


A    STORM   IN   THE   SIERRAS.  141 

he  could  not  hide.  The  finger  of  God  pointed  him 
out  to  all. 

Late  one  September  day  it  grew  intensely  sul 
try;  there  was  a  haze  in  the  sky  and  a  circle  about 
the  sun.  There  was  not  a  breath.  The  perspir 
ation  came  out  and  stood  on  the  brow,  even  as  we 
rested  in  the  shadow  of  the  pines.  A  singular 
haze;  such  a  day,  it  is  said,  as  precedes  earth 
quakes. 

The  black  crickets  ceased  to  sing;  the  striped 
lizards  slid  quick  as  ripples  across  the  rocks,  and 
birds  went  swift  as  arrows  overhead,  but  uttered 
no  cry.  There  was  not  a  sound  in  the  air  nor  on 
the  earth. 

Paquita  came  rushing  down  to  the  claim,  pale 
and  excited.  She  lifted  her  two  hands  above  her 
head  as  she  stood  on  the  bank,  and  called  to  us 
to  come  up  from  the  mine.  "  Come,"  she  cried, 
"  there  will  be  a  storm.  The  trees  will  blow  and 
break  against  each  other.  There  will  be  a  flood,  a 
fjea,  a  river  in  the  mountains.  Come!"  She 
swayed  her  body  to  and  fro,  and  the  trees  began  to 
sway  above  her  on  the  hills,  but  not  a  breath  had 
touched  the  mines. 

Then  it  grew  almost  dark;  we  fairly  had  to  feel 
our  way  up  the  ladder. 


142  MY   OWN  STORY. 

There  was  a  roar  like  the  sea  —  loud,  louder. 
Nearer  now  the  trees  began  to  bend  and  turn  and 
interweave  and  smite  and  crush  and  lurch  until 
their  tops  were  like  one  black  and  boiling  sea. 

Fast,  faster,  the  rain  in  great  warm  drops  began 
to  strike  us  in  the  face,  as  we  hastened  up  the  hill 
to  the  shelter  of  die  cabin.  At  the  door  we 
turned  to  look.  The  darkness  of  death  was  upon 
us;  we  could  hear  the  groans  and  the  battling  of 
the  trees,  the  howling  of  the  tempest,  but  all  was 
darkness,  blackness,  save  when  the  lightning  cleft 
the  heavens. 

A  sheet  of  flame — as  if  the  hand  of  God  had 
thrust  out  through  the  dark  and  smote  the  mount 
ain  side  with  a  sword  of  fire. 

And  then  the  thunder  shook  the  earth  till  it 
trembled,  as  if  Shasta  had  been  shaken  loose  and 
broken  from  its  foundation.  No  one  spoke.  The 
lightning  lit  the  cabin  like  a  bonfire.  Klamat  stood 
there  in  the  cabin  by  his  club  and  gun.  There  was 
in  his  face  a  grim  delight.  The  Doctor  lay  on  his 
face  in  his  bunk,  hiding  his  eyes  in  his  two  hands. 

No  one  undressed  that  night  in  the  camp. 

The  next  morning  the  fury  of  the  storm  was  over. 
We  ventured  out  and  looked  down  into  the  stream. 
It  was  nearly  large  enough  to  float  a  steamer.  The 


A   STORM   IN   THE   SIERRAS.  143 

claim  was  filled  up  as  level  as  when  we  first  took  it 
from  the  hands  of  the  Creator.  Ten  feet  of  water 
flowed  swift  and  muddy  over  it  toward  the  Klamat 
and  the  sea. 

Logs,  boards,  shingles,  rockers,  toms,  sluices, 
flumes,  pans,  riffles,  aprons,  went  drifting,  bobbing, 
dodging  down  the  angry  river  like  a  thousand 
eager  swimmers. 

The  storm  had  stolen  everything,  and  was  rush 
ing  with  his  plunder  straight  as  could  be  to  the  sea, 
as  if  he  feared  that  dawn  should  catch  him  in  the 
camp,  and  the  miners  come  upon  him  to  reclaim 
their  goods. 

Every  miner  in  the  camp  was  ruined.  No  man 
had  dreamed  of  this.  Maybe  a  few  had  saved  up 
a  little  fortune,  but,  as  a  rule,  all  their  fortunes  lay 
in  the  folds  of  the  next  few  months. 

Brave  men!  they  said  nothing;  they  set  their 
teeth,  looked  things  squarely  in  the  face,  but  did 
not  complain.  One  man,  however,  who  watched 
the  flood  from  a  point  on  the  other  side  and  saw  his 
flume  swept  away,  swung  his  old  slouched  hat, 
danced  a  sort  of  savage  hokee-pokee,  and  sang: 

"  O,  everything  is  lovely, 
And  the  goose  hangs  high !  " 

We  t\vo  had  not  saved  much  money.     And  what 


144  MY   OWN   STORY. 

portion  of  that  had  I  earned?  I  could  not  well 
claim  a  great  deal,  surely.  How  much  would  be 
left  when  the  debts  were  paid  —  the  butcher  and 
the  others  ?  True,  the  claim  was  valuable,  but  it 
had  no  value  now  —  not  so  much  as  a  sack  of 
flour.  There  were  too  many  wanting  to  get  away, 
and  men  had  not  yet  learned  the  worth  of  a 
mine.  Sometimes  in  these  days  new  excitements 
would  tap  a  camp,  drain  it  dry,  and  not  leave  a  soul 
to  keep  the  coyotes  from  taking  possession  of  the 
cabins. 

"  What  will  you  do?  "said  the  Prince  to  me,  as  we 
sat  on  the  bank.  "  We  cannot  reach  the  bed 
rock  again  till  far  into  the  next  year.  What  will 
you  do?  " 

"  May  I  stay  with  you?  " 

The  strong  man  reached  me  his  two  hands — "  As 
long  as  I  live  and  you  live,  my  little  one,  and 
there  is  a  blanket  to  my  name,  we  will  sleep  under 
it  together.  But  we  will  leave  this  camp.  I 
have  hated  it  from  the  first.  I  have  grown  old  here 
in  a  year.  I  cannot  breathe  in  this  narrow 
canon,  with  its  great  walls  against  the  clouds.  We 
will  go." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

A    HOUSE   TO   LET. 

THAT  night  the  Prince  talked  a  long  time  with 
Paquita  about  the  new  country  on  the  other  side  of 
Shasta,  and,  putting  her  account  and  my  brief 
knowledge  of  the  country  together,  he  resolved  to 
go  there,  where  gold,  according  to  her  story,  was 
to  be  had  almost  for  the  picking  up,  if  the  Indians 
did  not  interfere. 

The  next  morning  this  man  rested  his  elbows  on 
the  table,  and,  with  his  face  buried  in  his  hands,  was 
a  long  time  silent. 

"  Pack  up,"  he  said,  at  last,  to  the  little  girl. 

In  a  few  moments  she  stood  by  his  side,  with 
a  red  calico  dress  and  some  ribbons  tied  up  in  a 
handkerchief  in  one  hand,  and  a  pair  of  moccasins 
in  the  other. 

The  Doctor  was  anxious  to  get  away  —  more 
anxious,  perhaps,  than  any  one.  For  what  had  the 
camp  been  to  him?  If  I  could  have  had  my  way 
or  say,  I  would  have  left  this  mysterious,  sad-faced, 
silent  man  behind. 

I  think  the  Prince  would  have  done  the  same. 


146  MY   OWN   STORY. 

We  cannot  always  have  our  own  way,  even  with 
ourselves. 

Why  does  the  man  not  do  thus  and  so,  we  say? 
What  is  there  to  hinder  him?  Who  shall  say  yea 
or  nay?  Is  he  not  his  own  master?  No.  No  man 
is  his  own  master  who  has  a  conscience. 

If  this  man  had  been  of  stronger  will,  had  he 
not  been  so  utterly  helpless  and  friendless,  we 
could  have  left  him,  and  would  have  left  him  gladly; 
as  it  was,  it  was  not  a  matter  of  choice  at  all. 

Ponies  were  scarce,  and  mules  were  high  priced 
and  hard  to  get,  but  the  Doctor  was  not  so  poor  as 
we,  and  he  put  his  money  all  in  the  Prince's  hands. 
So  we  had  a  tolerable  outfit. 

A  very  little  pony  would  answer  for  me,  the  com 
monest  kind  could  bear  Paquita  and  her  extra  dress, 
while  Klamat  could  walk  and  make  his  own  way 
through  the  woods,  like  a  grayhound. 

The  Prince  procured  a  great  double-barreled 
shot-gun,  throwing  buckshot  by  the  handful,  for 
himself,  and  pistols  for  all,  for  we  were  going  into 
the  heart  of  a  hostile  country. 

An  officer,  it  was  rumored,  was  on  the  watch  for 
the  Doctor,  and  Klamat  prepared  to  lead  us  byway 
of  a  blind  trail,  up  the  mountain  side,  without  pass 
ing  out  by  way  of  The  Forks. 


A   HOUSE  TO   LET.  147 

One  of  the  most  interesting  studies,  as  well  as 
one  of  the  rarest,  is  that  of  man  in  a  state  of  nature. 
Next  to  that  is  the  state  of  man  removed  from,  or 
above  the  reach  of,  all  human  law,  utterly  away 
from  what  is  still  more  potent  to  control  the  actions 
of  men,  public  opinion  —  the  good  or  ill  will  of  the 
world. 

As  far  as  my  observation  has  gone,  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  any  expression  on  the  subject  would 
be  highly  laudatory  of  the  native  goodness  of  man. 
I  should  say,  as  a  rule,  he,  in  that  state,  is  brave, 
generous,  and  just. 

But  in  civilization  I  find  that  the  truly  just  and 
good  man  is  rarely  prominent,  he  is  hardly  heard 
of,  while  some  little,  sharp-faced  commercial  med 
dler,  who  never  spends  or  bestows  a  farthing  with 
out  first  balancing  it  on  his  finger,  and  reckon 
ing  how  much  it  will  bring  him  by  way  of  honor  in 
return,  is  often  counted  the  noblest  man  among  us. 

With  his  moccasins  bound  tight  about  his  feet, 
and  reaching  up  so  as  to  embrace  the  legs  of  his 
buckskin  pantaloons,  his  right  arm  freed  from  the 
hateful  red-shirt  sleeve  which  hung  in  freedom  at 
his  side,  some  eagle  feathers  in  his  hair,  and  his 
rifle  on  his  shoulder,  Klamat,  with  a  beaming  coun 
tenance,  led  the  way  from  the  cabin. 


148  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  Prince  had  assigned  him  the  post  of  honor, 
and  he  was  carried  away  with  delight.  He  seemed 
to  forget  that  he  was  the  only  one  on  foot.  No 
doubt  he  \vould  gladly  have  given  up  the  red  shirt 
and  buckskins,  all  but  his  rifle,  with  pleasure,  at 
this  supreme  moment,  had  they  been  required  to 
insure  his  position  as  leader. 

Alexander  gave  away  to  his  friends  the  last  of 
the  spoils  after  a  great  battle.  "  And  what  have 
you  kept  for  yourself?"  said  one.  "Hope  and 
glory,"  he  answered. 

Klamat  was  an  infant  Alexander. 

I  followed,  then  Paquita,  the  Doctor  next.  The 
Prince"  took  up  a  piece  of  charcoal  from  the  heap 
of  charcoal  outside  the  cabin,  and  wrote,  in  great, 
bold  letters  on  the  door: 

"To  LET." 

We  crossed  the  stream  at  a  cabin  below,  just  as 
the  miners  were  beginning  to  stir. 

They  seemed  to  know  that  something  unusual  was 
taking  place.  They  straightened  themselves  in  the 
fresh  light  and  air,  washed  their  hands  and  hairy 
faces  in  the  gold-pans  on  the  low  pine  stump  by  the 
door,  but  tried,  or  seemed  to  try,  not  to  observe. 

Once  across  the  stream,  Klamat  led  steeply  up 
the  hill  for  a  time,  then  he  would  chop  and  cut  to 


A   HOUSE   TO   LET.  149 

the  right  and  left  in  a  zigzag  route  until  we  had 
reached  the  rim  of  a  bench  in  the  mountain.  Here 
he  stopped  and  motioned  the  Prince  to  approach, 
after  he  had  looked  back  intently  into  the  camp 
and  taken  sight  by  some  pines  that  stood  before 
him. 

The  Prince  rode  up  to  the  boy  and  dismounted; 
when  he  had  done  so,  the  little  fellow  lifted  three 
fingers,  looked  excited,  and  pointed  down  upon 
the  old  cabin.  It  was  more  than  a  mile  away, 
nearly  a  mile  below;  but  the  sun  was  pitching 
directly  down  upon  it,  and  all  things  stood  out 
clear  and  large  as  life. 

Three  men  rode  quickly  up  to  the  cabin,  leaned 
from  their  mules  and  read  the  inscription.  The 
leader  now  dismounted,  kicked  open  the  door  and 
entered.  It  does  not  take  long  to  search  a  cabin, 
without  a  loft,  or  even  a  bed,  and  the  man  did  not 
remain  a  great  while  within. 

Without  even  taking  pains  to  close  the  door,  to 
keep  out  coyotes  and  other  things,  as  miners  do, 
so  that  cabins  may  be  habitable  for  some  wayfarer, 
or  fortune-hunters  who  may  not  have  a  house  of 
their  own,  he  hastily  mounted  and  led  the  party 
down  to  the  next  cabin  below. 

The  miners  were  evidently  at  breakfast,  for  the 


ISO  MY    OWN   STORY. 

man  leaned  from  his  saddle  and  shouted  two  or 
three  times  before  any  one  came  out. 

The  door  opened,  and  a  very  tall,  black-bearded, 
hairy  man  came  forth,  and  walked  up  before  the 
man  leaning  from  his  mule. 

What  was  said  I  do  not  know,  but  the  bare 
headed,  hairy  man  pointed  with  his  long  arm  up 
the  mountain  on  the  other  side,  exactly  the  opposite 
course  from  the  one  we  had  been  taken. 

Here  the  officer  said  something  very  loud,  pushed 
back  his  broad-brimmed  hat,  and  pointed  down  the 
stream.  The  long-armed,  bare-headed,  hairy  man 
again  pointed  emphatically  up  the  mountain  on  the 
other  side,  and  then  wheeled  on  his  heel,  entered, 
and  closed  the  door. 

The  interview  had  evidently  not  been  a  satis 
factory  one,  or  a  friendly  one  to  the  officer,  and  he 
led  his  men  slowly  down  the  creek  with  their  heads 
bent  down  intently  to  the  trail.  They  did  not  go 
far.  There  were  no  fresh  tracks  in  the  way.  The 
recent  great  rain  had  made  the  ground  soft,  and 
there  was  no  mistaking  the  absence  of  the  signs. 

There  was  a  consultation:  three  heads  in  broad 
hats  close  together  as  they  could  get  sitting  on  their 
mules.  Now  a  hat  would  be  pushed  back,  and  a 
face  lifted  up  exactly  in  our  direction.  We  had 


A   HOUSE   TO   LET.  I5l 

sheltered  behind  the  pines.  Klamat  was  holding 
the  Prince's  mule's  nose  to  keep  it  from  braying  to 
those  below.  Paquita  had  dismounted  a  little  way 
off,  behind  a  clump  of  pines,  and.was  plucking  some 
leaves  and  grasses  for  her  pony  and  the  pack-mule 
to  keep  them  still.  The  Doctor  never  seemed  more 
stupid  and  helpless  than  now,  but,  at  a  sign  from 
Klamat,  stole  out  to  the  shelter  where  Paquita 
stood,  dismounted,  and  began  to  gather  grasses, 
too,  for  his  mule. 

A  poor,  crooked,  imitative  little  monkey  he 
looked  as  he  bent  to  pluck  the  grass;  at  the  same 
time  watching  Paquita,  as  if  he  wished  to  forget 
that  there  was  any  graver  task  on  hand  than  to 
pluck  grass  and  feed  the  little  mules. 

Mules  are  noisy  of  a  morning  when  they  first  set 
out.  The  utmost  care  was  necessary  now  to  insure 
silence. 

Had  the  wind  blown  in  our  direction,  or  even  a 
mule  brayed  below,  these  mules  in  the  midst  of  our 
party  would  have  turned  their  heads  down  hill, 
pointed  their  opera-glasses  sharply  for  a  moment  or 
two  at  the  sounds  below,  and  then,  in  spite  of  kicks 
or  clubs,  have  brayed  like  trumpets,  and  betrayed 
us  where  we  stood. 

There  was  no  excitement  in  the  face  of  the  Prince, 


152  MY  OWN  STORY. 

not  much  concern.  His  foot  played  and  patted  in 
the  great  wooden  stirrup,  and  shook  and  jingled 
the  bells  of  steel  on  his  Spanish  spur,  but  he  said 
nothing. 

Sometimes  the  men  below  would  point  in  this 
direction,  and  then  in  that,  with  their  long  yellow 
gauntlets;  then  they  would  prick  and  spur  their 
mules  till  they  spun  round  like  tops. 

When  a  man  pricks  and  spurs  his  mule,  you  may 
be  sure  that  he  is  bothered. 

A  Yankee  would  scratch  his  head,  pull  at  his  ear, 
or  rub  his  chin;  an  Englishman  would  take  snuff;  a 
Missourian  would  take  a  chew  of  tobacco,  and 
perhaps  swear;  but  a  California!!  in  the  mountains 
disdains  to  do  anything  so  stupid  and  inexpressive. 
He  kicks  and  cuffs  and  spurs  his  mule. 

At  length  the  leader  set  his  spurs  in  the  broad 
hair-sinch,  with  the  long  steel  points  of  the  rowels, 
and  rode  down  to  the  water's  edge.  A  twig  was 
broken  there.  The  Doctor  had  done  that  as  we 
crossed,  to  get  a  switch  for  his  mule,  and  brought 
down  the  wrath  of  Klamat,  expressed,  however, 
only  in  frightful  grimaces,  signs,  and  the  flashing  of 
his  eyes.  The  officer  dismounted,  leaned  over, 
brushed  the  burs  aside,  took  some  of  them  up,  and 
examined  them  closely. 


A    HOUSE   TO   LET.  153 

An  arm  was  now  lifted  and  waved  authoritatively 
to  the  two  men  sitting  on  their  mules  in  the  trail, 
and  they  instantly  struck  the  spurs  in  the  broad 
sinch,  and  through  into  the  tough  skins  of  their 
mules,  I  think,  for  they  ambled  down  toward  the 
officer  at  a  rapid  pace  and  —  consternation!  One 
of  them  threw  up  his  head  and  brayed  as  if  for  life. 

The  Prince's  mule  pointed  his  opera-glasses,  set 
out  his  legs,  took  in  a  long  breath,  and  was  just 
about  to  make  the  forest  ring,  when  his  master 
sprung  to  the  ground,  caught  him  by  the  nose,  and 
wrenched  him  around  till  he  fell  upon  his  haunches. 

Here  Klamat  made  a  sign,  threw  the  Doctor  on 
his  mule,  left  Paquita  to  take  care  of  herself,  and 
led  off  up  the  hill.  We  mounted,  and  followed  as 
fast  as  possible;  but  the  Prince's  mule,  as  if  in  re 
venge,  now  stopped  short,  set  out  his  legs,  lifted 
his  nose,  and  brayed  till  the  very  pine-quills  quiv 
ered  overhead. 

After  he  had  brayed  to  his  satisfaction,  he  gave 
a  sort  of  grunt,  as  if  to  say,  "  We  are  even  now," 
and  shot  ahead.  The  little  pack-mule  was  no 
trouble.  He  had  but  a  light  load,  and,  as  if  in 
gratitude,  faithfully  kept  his  place. 

A  pony  or  horse  must  be  led.  Anything  but  a 
mule  will  roam  and  run  against  trees,  will  lodge 


154  MY   OWN  STORY. 

his  pack  in  the  boughs  that  hang  low  overhead,  or, 
worse  still,  stop  to  eat  of  the  branches  or  weeds, 
and  grasses  under  foot.  The  patient,  cunning  little 
Mexican  mule  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  He 
would  starve  rather  than  stop  to  eat  when  on  duty; 
and  would  as  soon  think  of  throwing  himself  down 
over  one  of  the  cliffs  that  he  is  familiar  with  as  to 
injure  or  imperil  the  pack  that  has  been  trusted  to 
his  care,  by  butting  against  trees,  or  lodging  under 
the  boughs  that  hang  above  the  trail.  He  stops  the 
instant  the  pack  is  loose,  or  anything  falls  to  the 
ground,  and  refuses  to  move  till  all  is  made  right. 

We  could  not  keep  pace  with  Klamat,  hasten  as 
we  might,  through  the  pines.  Like  a  spirit,  he 
darted  here  and  there  through  the  trees,  urging  and 
beckoning  all  the  time  for  us  to  follow  faster. 

We  could  not  see  our  pursuers  now,  yet  we  knew 
too  well  that  they  were  climbing,  fast  as  their  strong- 
limbed  sturdy  mules  would  serve  them,  the  hill  that 
we  had  climbed  an  hour  before.  The  advantage, 
on  one  hand,  was  theirs;  on  the  other,  we  had  things 
somewhat  our  own  way.  The  chances  were  about 
evenly  balanced  for  escape  without  blood. 

Anyone  who  frequents  the  mountains  of  the  North 
will  soon  notice  that  on  all  the  hillsides  facing  the 
sun  there  is  no  undergrowth.  You  may  ride  there, 


A    HOUSE   TO    LET.  1 55 

provided  you  do  not  wedge  in  between  the  trees  that 
grow  too  close  together  to  let^you  pass,  or  go  under 
a  hanging  bough,  the  same  as  in  a  park.  But  if  you 
get  on  the  north  side  of  the  hill,  you  find  an  under 
growth  that  is  almost  impassable  for  man  or  beast. 
Chaparral,  manzanita,  madrona,  plum,  whitethorn, 
and  many  other  kinds  of  shrubs  and  trees,  contribute 
to  make  a  perfectly  safe  retreat  from  men  for  the  wild 
beasts  of  those  regions.  In  a  flight,  this  is  the  chief 
thing  to  do.  Keep  your  eye  on  the  lay  of  the  hills, 
so  that  you  may  always  be  on  the  south  side,  or  you 
will  find  yourself  in  a  net. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

"  TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT  AS  THE  LAW  DIRECTS." 

ANOTHER  danger  lies  in  getting  too  low  down  on 
the  hillside  to  the  sea.  On  that  side,  where  only 
grass  has  grown  and  pine-quills  fallen  without  any 
undergrowth  to  hold  them  there,  and  contribute  its 
own  decaying  and  cast-off  clothes  to  the  soil,  the 
ground  is  often  broken,  and,  unlike  the  north  side 
of  the  hills,  shows  here  and  there  steep  bluffs  and 
impassable  basaltic  blocks,  or  slides  of  slate  or  shale 
on  which  it  would  be  madness  to  venture. 

The  only  safe  thing  to  do  is  to  find  the  summit,  and 
keep  along  the  backbone  of  the  mountain,  and  thus 
escape  the  chaparral  nets  of  the  north  and  precipices 
of  the  south. 

Great  skill  consists  in  being  able  to  reach  the 
summit  successfully,  and  still  greater  in  keeping 
along  the  backbone  when  it  is  once  reached,  and  not 
follow  off  on  one  of  the  spurs  that  often  shoot  up 
higher  than  the  back  of  the  main  ridge.  There  are 
many  trails  here,  made  by  game  going  to  and  fro 

in  the  warm  summer  days,  or  in  crossing  the  ridges 

(156) 


TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT.  1 57 

in  their  semi-annual  migrations  down  to  the  rivers 
and  back  again  to  the  mountains. 

The  temptations  to  take  one  of  tfyese  trails  and 
abandon  the  proper  one,  which  is  often  dim  and 
sometimes  wholly  indistinct,  are  many.  It  takes 
the  shrewdest  mountaineer  to  keep  even  so  much 
as  for  one  day's  journey  along  the  backbone  without 
once  being  led  aside  down  the  spurs  into  the  nets  of 
chaparral,  or  above  the  impassable  crags  and  preci 
pices.  Of  course,  when  you  can  retrace  your  steps 
it  is  a  matter  of  no  great  moment;  you  will  only 
lose  your  time.  But  with  us  there  was  no  going 
back. 

When  we  had  reached  the  second  bench  we 
turned  to  look.  Soon  the  heads  of  the  men  were 
seen  to  shoot  above  the  rim  of  the  bench  below; 
perhaps  less  than  a  mile  away.  No  doubt  they 
caught  sight  of  us  now,  for  the  hand  of  the  officer 
lifted,  pointed  in  this  direction,  and  he  settled  his 
spurs  in  his  sinch,  and  led  his  men  in  pursuit. 

Deliberately  the  Prince  dismounted,  set  his  sad 
dle  well  forward,  and  drew  the  sinch  tight  as  possi 
ble. 

We  all  did  the  same;  mounted  then,  and  followed 
the  boy,  who  had  by  this  time  set  both  arms 
free  from  the  odious  red  shirt  which  was  now  belted 


158  MY   OWN  STORY. 

about  his  waist,  up  the  hill  as  fast  as  we  could  fol 
low. 

We  reached  the  summit  of  the  ridge.  Scintilla 
tions  from  the  flashing  snows  of  Mount  Shasta 
shimmered  through  the  trees,  and  a  breath  of  air 
came  across  from  the  Klamat  lakes  and  the  Modoc 
lands  beyond,  as  if  to  welcome  us  from  the  dark, 
deep  canon  with  its  leaden  fringe,  and  lining  of 
dark  and  eternal  green. 

The  Doctor  pushed  his  hat  back  from  his  brow 
and  faintly  smiled.  He  was  about  to  kiss  his  hand 
to  the  splendid  and  majestic  mountain  showing  in 
bars  and  sections  through  the  trees,  but  looked 
around,  caught  the  eye  of  Klamat,  and  his  hand 
fell  timidly  to  his  side. 

As  for  Paquita,  she  leaped  from  her  pony  and 
put  out  her  arms  toward  her  childhood  home. 
Her  face  was  radiant  with  delight.  Beautiful  with 
divine  beauty,  she  arched  her  hand  above  her  brow, 
looked  long  and  earnestly  at  the  mountain,  and 
then,  in  a  wild  and  unaccountable  sort  of 
ecstacy,  turned  suddenly,  threw  her  arms  about  her 
pony's  neck,  embraced  him  passionately  and  kissed 
his  tawny  nose. 

We  had  been  buried  in  that  canon  for  so  long, 
we  were  like  men  who  had  issued  from  a  tomb.  ,As 


WE  COULD  NOT  KEEP  PACE  WITH  KLAMAT,  HASTEN  AS  Ws  MIGHT. 


"TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT."  159 

for  myself,  I  was  much  as  usual;  I  clasped  and 
twisted  my  hands  together  as  I  let  my  reins  fall  on 
my  horse's  neck,  and  said  nothing. 

Our  animals  were  mute  now,  too;  no  mule  of  the 
party  could  have  been  induced  to  bray.  They  were 
tired,  dripping  with  sweat,  and  held  their  brown 
noses  low  and  close  to  the  ground,  without  attempt 
ing  to  touch  the  weeds  or  grasses. 

Suddenly  Klamat  threw  up  his  hand.  The  men 
had  appeared  on  the  bench  below.  But  we  had 
evidently  gained  on  them  considerably,  for  here  we 
had  ten  minutes'  rest  before  they  broke  over  the 
mountain  bench  beneath.  This  was  encouraging. 
No  doubt  a  saddle  had  slipped  off  back  over  a 
mule's  rump  in  some  steep  place,  and  thus  caused 
the  delay,  for  they  had  neglected  to  sinch  their  sad 
dles  in  their  great  haste. 

They  dismounted  now,  and  settled  their  saddles 
again.  We  tightened  our  saddles  also. 

When  the  officer  threw  his  leg  over  the  macheers 
of  his  saddle  below,  Klamat  set  forward.  His  skill 
was  as  wonderful  as  his  endurance.  Being  now  on 
the  summit,  he  could  travel  without  halting  to 
breathe;  this,  of  course,  would  be  required  if  he 
hoped  to  keep  ahead.  And,  even  then,  where 
would  it  all  end?  It  is  most  likely  no  one  had 


/6O  MY   OWN   STORY. 

thought  of  that.  For  my  part,  I  kept  watching  the 
sun  and  wishing  for  night. 

There  is  an  instinctive  desire  of  all  things  rational 
or  irrational,  I  think,  that  are  compelled  to  fly,  to 
wish  for  night. 

"O  that  night  or  Blucher  would  come." 

It  was  hardly  possible  to  keep  ahead  of  our  pur 
suers  all  day,  well  mounted  as  they  were,  and  one 
of  our  party  on  foot,  yet  that  seemed  to  be  the  only 
hope.  There  yet  was  an  alternative,  if  the  worst 
came  to  the  worst.  We  could  ambush  and  shoot 

* 

them  down.  I  saw  that  Klamat  kept  an  eye  con 
stantly  on  his  rifle  when  not  foxing  the  trail  and 
eying  the  pursuers. 

The  Prince  was  well  armed.  He  carried  his 
double-barreled  piece  before  him  in  the  saddle 
bow.  The  rest  of  us  were  not  defenseless.  The 
deed  was  more  than  possible. 

These  men  wanted  the  Doctor:  him  only,  so  far  as 
we  knew.  The  Doctor  was  accused  of  murder. 
The  officer,  no  doubt,  had  due  process  and  the 
legal  authority  to  take  him.  To  the  Prince  he  was 
nothing  much.  He  was  no  equal  in  physical  or 
mental  capacity.  He  was  failing  in  health  and  in 
strength,  and  could  surely  be  of  no  future  possible 


"TURN   TO  THE  RIGHT."  l6l 

use  to  us.  Why  should  the  Prince  take  life,  or 
even  imperil  ours,  for  his  sake? 

The  answer,  no  doubt,  would  be  very  unsatis 
factory  to  the  civilized  world,  but  it  was  enough  for 
the  Prince.  The  man  needed  his  help.  The  man 
was  almost  helpless.  This,  perhaps,  was  the  first 
and  strongest  reason  for  his  course. 

But  at  the  bottom  of  all  other  reasons  for  taking 
care  of  this  man,  who  seemed  to  become  every  day 
less  capable  of  taking  care  of  himself,  was  a  little 
poetical  fact  not  forgotten.  This  man  furnished 
bread  when  we  were  hungry  —  when  the  snow  was 
deep,  when  the  earth  lay  in  a  lock-jaw,  as  it  were, 
and  could  not  open  her  mouth  to  us. 

Now  and  then  Klamat  would  turn  his  eyes  over 
his  shoulder,  toss  his  head,  and  urge  on.  The 
eagle-feathers  in  his  black  hair,  as  if  glad  to  get 
back  again  in  the  winds  of  Shasta,  floated  and  flew 
back  at  us,  and  we  followed  as  if  we  followed  a 
banner.  A  black  banner  this  we  followed,  made 
of  the  feathers  of  a  fierce  and  bloody  bird.  Where 
would  it  lead  us  ?  No  buccaneers  of  the  sea  were 
freer,  wilder,  braver  at  heart  than  we.  Where 
would  it  lead  us  ? 

One  thing  was  fearfully  against  us.  The  recent 
rains  had  made  the  ground  soft  and  spongy.  The 


1 62  MY   OWN   STORY. 

four  horses  made  a  trail  that  could  be  followed  on 
the  run.  Even  where  the  pine-quills  lay  thickest, 
the  ground  would  be  broken  here  and  there  so  as 
to  leave  little  doubt  or  difficulty  to  our  pursuers. 

Had  it  been  a  dry  autumn  the  ground  would  have 
been  hard  as  an  adobe,  and  we  might  have  dodged 
to  one  side  almost  anywhere,  and,  providing  our 
mules  did  not  smell  and  hail  the  passing  party, 
escaped  with  impunity.  As  it  was,  nothing  seemed 
left  but  to  persist  in  flight  to  the  uttermost.  And 
this  we  did. 

We  did  not  taste  food.  We  had  not  tasted 
wrater  since  sunrise,  and  it  was  now  far  in  the  after 
noon.  The  Doctor  began  to  sit  with  an  unsteady 
motion  in  his  saddle.  The  mules  were  beginning 
to  bray ;  this  time  from  distress,  and  not  excess  of 
spirits.  The  Prince's  mule  had  his  tongue  hanging 
out  between  his  teeth,  and,  what  was  worse,  his 
ears  began  to  flop  to  and  fro  as  if  they  had  wilted 
in  the  sun.  Some  mules  put  their  tongues  out 
through  their  teeth  and  go  very  well  for  days  after; 
but  when  a  mule  lets  his  ears  swing,  he  has  lost 
his  ambition,  and  is  not  to  be  depended  on  much 
longer. 

A  good  mountain  mule  should  not  tire  short  of  a 
week,  but  there  is  human  nature  wherever  there  is 


"  TURN  TO   THE   RIGHT."  163 

a  bargain  to  be  made,  and  there  are  mule  jockeys 
as  well  as  horse  jockeys  even  in  the  mountains;  and 
you  cannot  pick  up  good  mules  when  you  like, 
either  for  love  or  money.  The  men  who  followed 
had,  no  doubt,  a  tried  and  trusty  stock.  Things 
began  to  look  critical. 

The  only  thing  that  seemed  unaffected  was 
Klamat.  Our  banner  of  eagle  feathers  still  floated 
defiantly,  and  promised  to  lead  even  further  than 
we  could  follow.  Closer  and  closer  came  the  pur 
suers.  We  could  see  them  striking  their  steel  spurs 
in  their  sinches  as  if  they  would  lift  their  tired  mules 
along  with  their  heels. 

Once  they  were  almost  within  hail;  but  a  saddle 
slipped,  and  they  lost  at  least  ten  minutes  with  a 
fractious  mule,  that  for  a  time  concluded  .not  to  be 
sinched  again  till  it  had  taken  rest. 

The  sugar-pines  dropped  their  rich  and  delicate 
nuts  as  we  rode  by,  from  pyramid  cones  as  long  as 
your  arm,  and  little  foxy-looking  pine  squirrels 
with  pink  eyes  stopped  from  their  work  of  hoard 
ing  them  for  winter,  to  look  or  chatter  at  us  as  we 
hurried  breathless  and  wearily  past. 

Mount  Shasta  still  flashed  down  upon  us  through 
the  dark,  rich  boughs  of  fir  and  pine,  but  did  not 
thrill  us  now. 


1 64  MY   OWN   STORY. 

When  the  body  is  tired,  the  mind  is  tired  too. 
You  get  surfeited  with  grandeur  at  such  a  time. 
No  doubt  the  presence  tames  you  somewhat,  tones 
down  the  rugged  points  in  you  that  would  like  to 
find  expression;  that  would  find  expression  in 
feeble  words  but  for  this  greatness  which  shows 
you  how  small  you  are;  but  you  are  subdued  rather 
than  elevated. 

Suddenly  Klamat  led  off  to  the  right  as  if  for 
saking  the  main  summit  for  a  spur.  This  seemed 
a  bad  sign.  The  Prince  said  nothing.  At  any 
other  time,  I  daresay,  he  would  have  protested. 

We  had  no  time  to  dispute  now;  besides,  almost 
any  change  from  this  toilsome  and  eternal  run  was 
a  relief.  What  made  things  seem  worse,  however, 
this  boy  seemed  to  be  leading  us  back  again  to  The 
Forks.  We  were  edging  around  at  right  angles 
with  our  pursuers.  They  could  cut  across  if  we 
kept  on,  and  head  us  off.  We  were  making  more 
than  a  crescent;  the  boy  was  leading  us  right  back 
to  the  men  we  wished  to  escape. 

Soon  he  went  out  on  a  point  and  stopped.  He 
beckoned  us  to  ride  up.  We  did  so.  It  seemed 
less  than  half  a  mile  to  a  point  we  had  passed  an 
hour  since,  and,  as  far  as  we  could  see,  there  was 
only  a  slight  depression  between.  The  officer  and 


"TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT."  165 

his  party  soon  came  in  sight.  As  they  did  so,  he 
raised  his  arm.  We  were  not  unobserved. 

Klamat  sat  down  to  rest,  and  made  signs  that  we 
should  dismount.  I  looked  at  the  Prince  to  see 
what  he  would  do.  He  swung  himself  to  the 
ground,  looking  tired  and  impatient,  and  we  all  did 
the  same.  The  Doctor  could  not  keep  his  feet, 
but  lay  down,  helpless,  on  the  brown  bed  of  quills 
from  the  sugar-pines  that  clustered  around  and 
crowned  the  point  where  we  had  stopped  to  rest. 

The  officer  and  his  men  looked  to  their  catenas; 
each  drew  a  pistol,  revolved  the  cylinder,  settled 
the  powder  back  in  the  tubes  by  striking  the  ivory 
handles  gently  on  the  saddle  pommels,  saw  that 
each  nipple  still  held  its  cap,  and  then  spurred  his 
mule  down  the  hillside  as  if  to  cross  the  depression 
that  lay  between,  and  head  us  off  at  once. 

They  were  almost  within  hail,  and  I  thought  I 
could  hear  the  clean,  sharp  click  of  the  steel  bells 
on  their  Spanish  spurs  as  they  descended  and  dis 
appeared  among  the  tree-tops  as  if  going  down  in 
to  a  sea. 

Klamat  had  learned  some  comic  things  in  camp, 
even  though  he  had  not  learned,  or  pretended  he 
had  not  learned,  to  talk.  When  the  men  had  dis 
appeared  among  the  branches  of  the  trees,  he 


1 66  MY   OWN   STORY. 

turned  to  the  Prince  and  gravely  lifted  his  thumb 
to  his  nose,  elevated  his  fingers  in  the  air,  and 
wriggled  them  in  the  direction  of  the  place  where 
the  officer  was  seen  to  descend. 

Every  moment  I  expected  to  see  the  muzzles  of 
those  pistols  thrust  up  through  the  pines.  They 
did  not  appear,  however,  and,  as  we  arose  to  adjust 
our  saddles  after  some  time,  I  stepped  to  the  rim 
of  the  hill  and  looked  over  to  the  north  side.  The 
hill  was  steep  and  rugged,  with  a  ledge,  and  lined 
with  chaparral.  A  white-ta«led  rabbit  came 
through,  sat  down,  and  looked  back  into  the  canon. 
Some  quails  started  and  flew  to  one  side,  but  that 
was  all  I  saw  or  heard. 

The  Doctor  had  now  to  be  assisted  to  his  saddle. 
He  was  pale,  and  his  lips  were  parched  and  swollen. 
Slowly  now  Klamat  walked  ahead  ;  he,  too,  was 
tired.  We  had  rested  too  long,  perhaps.  You 
cannot  get  an  Indian  to  sit  down  when  on  a  long 
and  severe  journey,  unless  compelled  to,  to  rest 
others.  The  cold  and  damp  creeps  into  the  joints, 
and  you  get  stiff  and  tenfold  more  tired  than  be 
fore.  Great  as  the  temptation  is  to  rest,  you  should 
first  finish  your  whole  day's  journey  before  you  let 
your  nerves  relax. 

Slowly  as  we  moved,  however,  our  pursuers  did 


"TURN  TO  THE  RIGHT."  167 

not  reappear.  We  were  still  on  the  ridge,  in  spite 
of  the  sharp  and  eccentric  turn  it  had  taken  around 
the  head  of  the  river. 

As  the  sun  went  down,  broad,  blood-red  banners 
ran  up  to  the  top  of  Shasta,  and  streamed  away 
to  the  south  in  hues  of  gold  ;  streamed  and 
streamed  as  if  to  embrace  the  universe  in  one  great 
union  beneath  one  banner.  Then  the  night  came 
down  as  suddenly  on  the  world  as  the  swoop  of  an 
eagle. 

The  Doctor,  who  had  all  the  afternoon  kept  an 
uncertain  seat,  now  leaned  over  on  his  mule's 
mane,  and  had  fallen,  but  for  the  Prince  who  was 
riding  at  his  side. 

Klamat  came  back  and  set  his  rifle  against  a  pine. 
We  laid  the  feeble  man  on  the  bed  of  quills, 
loosened  the  sinches  as  the  mules  and  ponies  let 
their  noses  droop  almost  to  the  ground,  and  pre 
pared  to  spend  the  night. 

A  severe  ride  in  the  mountains  at  any  time  is  a 
task.  Your  neck  is  wrenched,  and  your  limbs  are 
weary  as  you  leap  this  log  or  tumble  and  stumble 
your  tired  animal  over  this  pile  of  rocks  or  through 
that  sink  of  mud,  until  you  are  tired  enough  by 
night  ;  but  when  you  ride  an  awkward  and  un 
trained  mule,  when  you  have  not  sat  a  horse  for  a 


1 68  MY   OWN   STORY. 

year,  and  have  an  old  saddle  that  fits  you  like  an 
umbrella  or  a  barrel,  you  get  tired,  stiff-limbed,  and 
used  up  in  a  way  that  is  indescribable.  As  for 
poor  Paquita,  she  was  literally  crucified,  but  went 
about  picking  up  quills  for  beds  for  all,  and  never 
once  murmured. 

The  Doctor  was  very  ill.  Klamat  went  down  the 
hillside  and  found  some  water  to  wet  his  lips,  but 
this  did  not  revive  him.  It  was  a  cold  evening. 
The  wind  came  pitching  down  from  Shasta,  sharp 
and  sudden. 

We  spread  a  bed  for  the  suffering  man,  but  still 
he  shivered  and  shook,  and  we  could  not  get  him 
warm.  We,  too,  were  suffering  from  the  cold. 
We  could  hardly  move  when  we  had  rested  a 
moment  and  let  the  wind  drive  the  chill  to  the 
marrow. 

"  A  fire,"  said  the  Prince. 

Klamat  protested  against  it.  The  sick  man  grew 
wcfrse.  Something  warm  would  restore  him. 

We  must  have  a  fire.  Paquita  gathered  up  some 
pine  knots  from  the  hillside.  A  match  was  struck 
in  the  quills.  The  mules  started,  lifted  their  noses, 
but  hardly  moved  as  the  fire  sprung  up  like  a  giant 
full-grown,  and  reached  for  the  cones  of  the  sugar- 
pines  overhead.  There  was  comfort  and  compan- 


"  TURN   TO   THE   RIGHT."  169 

ionship  in  the  fire.  We  could  see  each  other  now, 
— our  little  colony  of  pilgrims.  We  looked  at  one 
another  and  were  revived. 

We  had  a  little  coffee-pot,  black  and  battered  it  is 
true,  but  the  water  boiled  just  the  same,  and  as 
soon  as  if  it  had  been  silver. 

This  revived  the  Doctor.  Hunger  had  much  to 
do  with  his  faintness.  He  now  sat  up  and  talked, 
in  his  low,  quiet  way,  looking  into  the  fire  and 
brushing  the  little  mites  of  dust  and  pine  quills 
from  his  shirt,  as  if  still  to  retain  his  great  respecta 
bility  of  dress;  and  by  the  time  we  had  all  finished 
our  coffee,  he  was  almost  as  cheerful  as  we  had 
ever  seen  him  before. 

The  moon  came  out  clear  and  cold,  and  we 
spread  our  blankets  on  the  quills  between  the  pines, 
with  the  snowy  front  of  Shasta  lifting  —  lifting 
like  a  bank  of  clouds  away  to  the  left,  and  the 
heads  of  many  mining  streams  dipping  away  in  so 
many  wild  and  dubious  directions,  that  no  one  but 
our  little  leader,  perhaps,  could  have  found  the  way 
through  without  the  gravest  embarrassment. 

"  Lie  down,  Paquita,"  said  the  Prince;  "  lie  down 
and  rest  with  your  moccasins  to  the  fire;  you  have 
had  a  hard  and  bitter  day  of  it.  I  will  keep  the 
fire." 


I7O  MY   OWN   STORY. 

The  child  obeyed.  He  waved  his  hand  at  me  to 
do  the  same,  and  I  was  soon  sound  asleep. 

The  last  I  saw  of  the  Prince  before  falling  asleep, 
he  was  resting  on  his  side  with  his  hand  on  his 
head,  and  elbow  on  his  blankets.  In  the  mountains, 
when  you  spread  your  blankets,  you  put  your  arms 
— rifle  or  pistols — in  between  the  blankets  as  care 
fully  as  if  they  were  children.  This  is  done,  in  the 
first  place,  to  keep  them  dry,  and,  in  the  second 
place,  to  have  them  ready  for  use.  They  are  laid 
close  to  your  side.  The  heat  of  your  body  keeps 
out  the  damp. 

I  awoke  soon.  I  was  too  bruised,  and  sore,  and 
sick  in  mind  and  body,  to  sleep.  There  is  a  dole 
ful,  dreary  bird  that  calls  in  this  country  in  the 
night,  in  the  most  mournful  tone  you  can  imagine. 
It  is  a  sort  of  white-headed  owl;  not  large,  but 
with  a  very  hoarse  and  coarse  note.  One  of  these 
birds  was  calling  at  intervals  down  the  gorge  to  the 
right,  and  another  answered  on  the  other  side  so 
faintly  I  could  just  hear  it.  An  answer  would  come 
just  as  regularly  as  this  one  called,  and  that  would 
sound  even  more  doleful  and  dreary  still,  because 
so  far  and  indistinct.  The  moon  hung  cold  and 
crooked  overhead,  and  fell  in  flakes  through  the 
trees  like  snow. 


"TURN   TO   THE   RIGHT."  IJl 

But  we  were  safe  now  in  the  strong,  dark  arms 
of  mother  night.  Our  pursuers  were  lost  in  the 
sea  of  pines  below. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

HOME. 

A  PECULIARLY  nervous  man  suffers  from  a  men 
tal  ailment  as  distinctly  as  from  a  wound.  He 
grows  weak  under  the  sense  of  mental  distress  the 
same  as  an  ordinary  man  does  from  the  loss  of 
blood.  Remove  the  cause  of  apprehension,  and 
he  recovers  the  same  as  the  wounded  man  recovers. 
Free  the  mind,  and  you  stop  the  flow  of  blood. 
He  grows  strong  again. 

We  moved  on  a  little  way  the  next  day,  slowly, 
to  be  sure,  but  fast  enough  and  far  enough  to  be 
able  to  pitch  our  camp  in  a  place  of  our  own 
choosing,  with  wood,  water  and  grass,  the  indis 
pensable  requisites  of  a  mountain  camp,  all  close 
at  hand. 

To  the  astonishment  of  all,  the  Doctor  unsaddled 
his  mule,  gathered  up  wood,  and  was  a  full  half- 
hand  at  supper.  At  night  he  spread  his  own 
blankets,  looked  to  his  pistols  like  an  old  mount 
aineer,  and  seemed  to  be  at  last  getting  in  earnest 
with  life.  The  next  day,  as  we  rode  through  the 
trees,  he  whistled  at  the  partridges  as  they  ran  in 


HOME.  173 

strings  across  the  trails,  and  chirped  at  the  squirrels 
overhead. 

How  delightful  it  was  to  ride  through  the  grass 
and  trees,  hear  the  partridges  whistle;  pack  and 
unpack  the  horses,  pitch  the  tent  by  the  water, 
and  make  a  military  camp,  and  talk  of  war;  imagine 
battles,  shooting  from  behind  the  pines,  and  always, 
of  course,  making  yourself  a  hero.  Splendid!  I 
was  busy  as  a  bee.  I  cooked,  packed,  stood 
guard,  killed  game,  did  everything.  And  so  we 
journeyed  on  through  the  splendid  forests,  under  the 
awful,  frowning  front  of  Shasta,  and  over  peaceful 
little  streams  that  wound  silently  through  the  grass, 
as  if  afraid,  till  we  came  to  the  headwaters  of  the 
Sacramento. 

Sometimes  we  saw  other  camps.  White  tents 
pitched  down  by  the  shining  river,  among  the 
scattered  pines;  brown  mules  and  spotted  ponies 
feeding  and  half  buried  in  the  long  grass;  and 
the  sound  of  the  picks  in  the  bar  below  us  —  all 
made  a  picture  in  my  life  to  love. 

Once  we  fell  in  with  an  Indian  party  —  pretty 
girls  and  lively,  unsuspicious  boys,  along  with  their 
parents  —  fishing  for  salmon,  and  not  altogether 
at  war  with  the  whites.  They  treated  us  with 
great  kindness. 


174  MY   OWN   STORY. 

At  last  we  branched  off  entirely  to  ourselves,  cut 
ting  deep  into  the  mountain  as  the  winter  approached, 
looking  for  a  home.  The  weak  condition  of  the 
Doctor  made  it  necessary  that  we  bring  our 
journey  to  a  close.  We  had  taken  a  different  route 
from  others,  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons.  The 
trails  and  tracks  of  the  hundreds  of  gold-hunters, 
who  had  mostly  preceded  us  some  months,  lay  con 
siderably  west  of  Mount  Shasta,  striking  the  head 
of  the  Sacramento  River  at  its  very  source.  They 
had  found  only  a  few  placers  with  float  gold,  not  in 
sufficient  quantities  to  warrant  the  location  of  a 
camp,  and  pushed  on  to  the  mines  farther  south. 

We  sometimes  met  a  party  of  ten  or  more,  all 
well  armed  and  mounted,  ready  to  fight  or  fly  as 
the  case  might  require.  The  usual  mountain  civili 
ties  would  be  exchanged,  brief  and  brusque  enough, 
and  each  party  would  pass  on  its  way,  with  a  fre 
quent  glance  thrown  back  suspiciously  at  our  Indian 
boy  with  his  rifle,  the  invalid  Doctor  leaning  on  his 
catenas,  the  Indian  girl  with  her  splendid  hair  and 
face  as  bright  as  the  morning,  and  the  majestic 
figure  of  the  Prince.  An  odd-looking  party  was 
ours,  I  confess. 

Paquita  knew  every  dimple,  bend,  or  spur  in 
these  mountains  now.  The  Prince  intrusted  her 


HOME.  175 

to  select  some  suitable  place  to  rest.  One  evening 
she  drew  rein  and  reached  out  her  hand.  Klamat 
stood  his  .rifle  against  a  pine,  and  began  to  unpack 
the  tired  little  mule,  and  all  dismounted  without  a 
word. 

It  was  early  sundown.  A  balm  and  a  calm  was 
on  and  in  all  things.  The  very  atmosphere  was  still 
as  a  shadow  and  seemed  to  say,  "  Rest,  rest!  "  We 
were  on  the  edge  of  an  opening;  a  little  prairie  of 
a  thousand  acres,  inclining  south,  with  tall,  very  tall 
grass,  and  a  little  stream  straying  from  where  we 
were  to  wander  through  the  meadow.  A  wall  of 
pines  stood  thick  and  strong  around  our  little  Eden, 
and,  when  we  had  unsaddled  our  tired  animals  and 
taken  the  apparajo  from  the  little  packer,  we 
turned  them  loose  in  the  little  Paradise,  without 
even  so  much  as  a  lariat  or  hackamoor  to  restrain 
them. 

The  sun  had  just  retired  from  the  body  of  the 
mountain,  but  it  was  evident  that  all  day  long  he 
rested  here  and  made  glad  the  earth;  for  crickets 
sang  in  the  grass  as  they  sing  under  the  hearthstones 
in  the  cabins  of  the  West,  and  little  birds  started  up 
from  the  edge  of  the  valley  that  were  not  to  be  found 
in  the  forest. 

An  elk  came  out  from  the  fringe  of  the  wood, 


1 76  MY   OWN   STORY. 

threw  liis  antlers  back  on  his  shoulders,  with  his 
brown  nose  lifted,  and  blew  a  blast  as  he  turned  to 
fly  that  made  the  horses  jerk  their  heads  from  the 
grass,  and  start  and  wheel  around  with  fright.  A 
brown  deer  came  out,  too,  as  if  to  take  a  walk  in 
the  meadow  beneath  the  moon,  but  snuffed  a  breath 
from  the  intruders  and  turned  away.  Bears  came 
out  two  by  two  in  single  file,  but  did  not  seem  to 
notice  us. 

Some  men  say  that  the  bear  is  deprived  of  the 
sense  of  smell  in  the  wild  state.  A  mistake.  He 
relies  as  much  on  his  nose  as  the  deer;  perhaps 
more,  for  his  little  black  eyes  are  so  small  that  they 
surely  are  not  equal  to  the  great  liquid  eyes  of  the 
buck,  which  are  so  set  in  his  head  that  he  may  see 
far  and  wide  at  once.  But  the  bear  carries  his 
nose  close  to  the  ground,  and  of  course  can  hardly 
smell  an  intruder  in  his  domains  until  he  comes 
upon  his  track.  Then  it  is  curious  to  observe  him. 
He  throws  himself  on  his  hind  legs,  stands  up  tall 
as  a  man,  thrusts  out  his  nose,  lifts  it,  snuffs  the  air, 
turns  all  around  in  his  tracks,  and  looks  and  smells 
in  every  direction  for  his  enemy.  If  he  is  a  cub, 
however,  or  even  a  cowardly  grown  bear,  he 
wheels  about  the  moment  he  comes  upon  the  track, 


HOME.  177 

will  not  cross  it  under  any  circumstances,  and 
plunges  again  into  the  thicket. 

We  had  a  blazing  fire  soon,  and  at  last,  when  we 
had  sat  down  to  the  mountain  meal,  spread  on  3 
canvas  mantaro,  each  man  on  his  saddle  or  a  roll 
of  blankets,  with  his  knife  in  hand,  Klamat  looked 
at  our  limited  supply  of  provisions,  and  then  pointed 
to  the  game  in  the  meadow. 

He  pictured  sunrise,  the  hunt,  the  deer,  the 
crack  of  his  rifle,  and  how  he  would  come  into  camp 
laden  with  supplies.  All  this,  he  gave  us  to  under 
stand,  would  take  place  to-morrow,  as  he  placed  a 
sandwich  between  his  teeth,  and  threw  his  eyes 
across  his  shoulder  at  the  dark  figures  stealing 
through  the  grass  across  the  other  side  of  our  little 
Eden. 

The  morning  witnessed  the  fulfillment.  Paquita 
was  more  than  busy  all  day  in  dressing  venison, 
and  drying  the  meat  for  winter.  The  place  was  as 
full  of  game  as  a  park.  No  lonelier  or  more  iso 
lated  place  than  this  on  earth.  We  walked  about 
and  viewed  our  new  estates.  The  mules  and 
ponies  rolled  in  the  rich  grass,  or  rested  in  the  sun 
with  drooping  heads  and  half-closed  eyes. 

Even  the  invalid  Docto'r  seemed  to  revive  in  a 
most  sudden  and  marvelous  way.  He  saw  that  no 


178  MY   OWN   STORY. 

white  man's  foot  had  ever  trod  the  grasses  of  this 
valley;  that  there  we  might  rest  and  rest,  and 
never  rise  up  from  fear.  He  could  trust  the  wall 
of  pine  that  environed  us.  It  was  impassable.  He 
stood  before  an  alder-tree  that  leaned  across  the 
babbling,  crooked  little  stream,  and  with  his  sheath- 
knife  cut  this  word  —  HOME. 

A  little  way  from  here  Paquita  showed  us  another 
opening  in  the  forest.  This  was  a  wider  valley, 
with  warm  sulphur  and  soda  springs  in  a  great  cres 
cent  all  around  the  upper  rim.  Here  the  elk  would 
come  to  winter,  she  said;  and  here  we  could  never 
want  for  meat.  The  earth  and  atmosphere  were 
kept  warm  here  from  the  eternal  springs;  and  grass 
would  be  fresh  and  green  the  winter  through. 

So  here  we  built  our  cabin,  reared  a  fortress 
against  the  approaching  winter  without  delay,  for 
every  night  his  sentries  were  coming  down  bolder 
and  bolder  about  the  camp. 

This  was  the  famous  "  Lost  Cabin. "  It  stood  on 
a  hillside,  a  little  above  the  prairie,  facing  the  sun, 
close  to  the  warm  springs,  and  was  not  unlike  an 
ordinary  miner's  cabin,  except  that  the  fireplace 
was  in  the  center  of  the  room  instead  of  being 
awkwardly  placed  at  one  end,  where  but  few  can 


HOME.  179 

get  the  benefit  of  the  fire.  This  departure  was  not 
without  reason. 

In  the  first  place,  the  two  Indians,  constituting 
nearly  half  of  the  voting  population  of  our  little 
colony,  insisted  on  it  with  a  zeal  that  was  certainly 
commendable ;  and,  as  they  insisted  on  nothing 
else,  it  was  only  justice  to  listen  to  them  in  this. 

"  By-and-by  my  people  will  come,"  said  Paquita, 
"  and  then  you  will  want  an  Indian  fire,  a  fire  that 
they  can  sit  down  by  and  around  without  sending 
somebody  back  in  the  cold." 

No  Indian  had  as  yet,  so  far  as  we  knew,  dis 
covered  us.  Paquita  had  from  the  first,  around 
the  fire,  told  her  plans  ;  how  that,  as  soon  as  she 
should  be  well  rested  from  her  journey,  and  a  house 
was  built  and  meat  secured  for  the  winter,  she 
would  take  her  pony,  strike  a  trail  that  lay  still 
deeper  in  the  woods,  and  follow  it  up  till  she  came 
to  her  father's  winter  lodges. 

How  enthusiastically  she  pictured  the  reception. 
How  clearly  she  pictured  it  all.  .She  wrould  ride 
into  the  village  at  sundown,  alone;  the  dogs  would 
bark  a  great  deal  at  her  red  dress.  Then  she  would 
dismount,  and  go  straight  up  to  her  father's  lodge, 
and  sit  down  by  the  door.  The  Indians  would 
pass  by  and  pretend  not  to  see  her,  but  all  the  time 


ISO  MY   OWN   STORY. 

be  looking  slyly  sideways,  half-dead  to  know  who 
she  was.  Then,  after  a  while,  some  one  of  the 
women  wo.uld  come  out  and  bring  her  some  water. 
Maybe  that  would  be  her  sister.  If  it  was  her 
sister,  she  would  lift  up  her  left  arm,  and  show  her 
the  three  little  marks  on  the  wrist,  and  then  they 
would  know  her. 

One  fine  morning  she  set  forth  on  her  contem 
plated  journey.  I  did  not  like  the  place  so  well 
now.  The  forest  was  black,  gloomy,  ghostly  —  a 
thing  to  be  dreaded.  Before,  it  was  dreamy,  deep 
— a  marvel,  a  something  to  love  and  delight  in. 
The  cabin,  that  had  been  a  very  palace,  was  now 
so  small  and  narrow,  it  seemed  I  would  suffocate 
in  the  smoke;  The  fires  did  not  burn  so  well  as 
they  did  before.  Nobody  could  build  a  fire  like 
Paquita. 

Back  from  our  cabin  a  little  way  were  some  grand 
old  bluffs,  topped  with  pine  and  cedar,  from  which 
the  view  of  valley,  forest,  and  mountain,  was  all 
that  could  be  desired.  A  little  way  down  the 
waters  of  the  valley  came  together,  and  went 
plunging  all  afoam  down  the  canon,  almost  impass 
able,  even  for  footmen.  Here  we  found  fine  veins 
of  quartz,  and  first-rate  indications  of  gold,  both  in 
the  rock  and  in  the  placer.  The  Prince  and  the 


HOME.  l8l 

Doctor  revived  their  theories  on  the  origin  of  gold, 
and  had  many  plans  for  putting  their  speculations 
to  the  test. 

Klamat  was  never  idle,  yet  he  was  never  social. 
There  was  a  bitterness,  a  sort  of  savage  deviltry,  in 
all  he  did.  A  fierce,  positive  nature  was  his,  and 
hardly  bridled. 

Whether  that  disposition  dated  further  back  than 
a  certain  winter,  when  the  dead  were  heaped  up, 
and  the  wigwams  burned,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Klamat,  or  whether  it  was  born  there  of  the  blood 
and  bodies  in  the  snow,  and  came  to  life  only  when 
a  little,  naked  skeleton  savage  sprung  up  in  the 
midst  of  men  with  a  club,  I  do  not  pretend  to  say, 
but  I  should  guess  the  latter.  I  can  picture  him  a 
little  boy,  with  bow  and  arrows,  not  over  gentle  it 
is  true,  but,  still,  a  patient  little  savage,  like  the  rest, 
talking  and  taking  part  in  the  sports,  like  those 
around  him.  Now,  he  was  prematurely  old.  He 
never  laughed;  never  so  much  as  smiled;  took  no 
delight  in  anything,  and  yet  refused  to  complain. 
He  did  his  part,  but  kept  his  secrets  and  his  sorrows 
to  himself,  whatever  they  may  have  been. 

Klamat  had  never  alluded  to  the  massacre  in  any 
way  whatever.  Once,  when  it  was  mentioned,  he 
turned  his  head  and  pretended  not  to  hear.  Yet, 


1 82  MY   OWN   STORY. 

somehow  it  seemed  to  me  that  that  scene  was  before 
him  every  moment.  He  saw  it  in  the  fire  at  night, 
in  the  forest  by  day.  There  are  natures  that  can 
not  forget  if  they  would.  A  scene  like  that  settles 
down  in  the  mind;  it  takes  up  its  abode  there  and 
refuses  to  go  away. 

Indians  in  the  aggregate  forget  less  than  any  other 
people.  They  remember  the  least  kindness  per 
fectly  well  all  through  life,  and  a  deep  wrong  is  as 
difficult  to  forget.  The  reason  is,  I  should  say, 
because  the  Indian  does  not  meet  with  a  great  deal 
of  kindness  as  he  goes  through  life.  His  mind  and 
memory  are  hardly  overtaxed,  I  think,  in  remem 
bering  good  deeds  from  the  white  man. 

Besides,  their  lives  are  very  monotonous.  But 
few  events  occur  of  importance  outside  their  wars. 
They  have  no  commercial  speculations  to  call  off  the 
mind  in  that  direction;  no  books  to  forget  them 
selves  in,  and  cannot  go  beyond  the  sea,  and  hide 
in  old  cities,  to  escape  any  great  sorrow  that  pur 
sues  them.  So  they  have  learned  to  remember  the 
good  and  the  bad  better  than  do  their  enemies. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE   LOST   CABIN. 

THE  snow  began  to  fall,  and  Paquita  did  not 
return. 

Elk  came  down  the  mountain  toward  the  spring, 
and  we  could  shoot  them  from  our  cabin  door. 
At  this  season  of  the  year,  as  well  as  late  in  the 
fall,  they  are  found  in  herds  of  hundreds  together. 

It  seems  odd  to  say  that  they  should  go  up  fur 
ther  into  the  mountains  as  winter  approaches, 
instead  of  down  into  the  foot-hills  and  plains  be 
low,  as  do  the  deer,  but  it  is  true.  There  are 
warm  springs  —  in  fact,  all  mountain  springs  are 
warmer  in  the  winter  than  in  the  summer  —  up  the 
mountain,  where  vine-maple,  a  kind  of  watercress, 
and  swamp  briars  grow  in  the  warm  marshes  or  on 
the  edges,  and  here  the  elk  subsist.  When  the 
maple  and  grasses  of  one  marsh  are  consumed, 
they  break  through  the  snow  in  single  file,  led  in 
turns  by  the  bulls,  to  another. 

Hundreds  in  this  way  make  but  one  great  track, 
much  as  if  a  great,  big  log  had  been  drawn  to  and 

fro'  through  the   snow.     The  cows  come  up  last, 

(183) 


I  84  MY    OWN    STORY. 

to  protect  the  calves  in  the  line  of  march  from  the 
wolves. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  elk  use  their 
splendid  horns  in  battle.  These  are  only  used  to 
receive  the  enemy  upon,  a  sort  of  cluster  of  bay 
onets  in  rest.  All  offensive  action  is  with  the  feet. 
An  elk's  horns  are  so  placed  on  his  head,  that,  when 
his  nose  is  lifted  so  as  to  enable  him  to  move  about 
or-^see  his  enemy,  they  are  thrown  far  back  on  his 
shoulders,  where  they  are  quite  useless.  He  strikes 
out  with  his  feet,  and  throws  his  head  on  the  ground 
to  receive  his  enemy.  You  have  much  to  fear 
from  the  feet  of  an  elk  at  battle,  but  nothing  from 
his  matchless  antlers. 

The  black  bears  here  also  go  up  the  mountain 
when  the  winter  approaches.  They  find  some  hoi- 

I 

low  trunk,  usually  the  trunk  of  a  sturdy  tree,  and 
creep  into  it  close  down  to  the  ground.  Here  they 
lie  till  snowed  in  and  covered  over,  very  fat,  for 
months  and  months,  in  a  long  and  delightful  sleep, 
and  never  come  out  till  the  snow  melts  away,  or 
they  have  the  ill-fortune  to  be  smelled  out  by  the 
Indian  dogs. 

Whenever  Indians  find  a  black  bear  thus,  they 
pound  on  the  tree  and  call  to  him  to  come  out. 
They  challenge  him  in  all  kinds  of  bantering  Ian- 


THE   LOST   CABIN.  1 85 

guage,  call  him  a  coward  and  a  lazy,  fat  old  fellow, 
that  would  run  away  from  the  squaws,  and  would 
sleep  all  summer.  They  tell  him  it  is  springtime 
now,  and  he  had  better  get  up  and  come  out  and 
.see  the  sun.  The  most  remarkable  thing,  however, 
is,  that,  so  soon  as  the  bear  hears  the  pounding  on 
the  tree,  he  begins  to  dig  and  endeavor  to  get  out ; 
so  that  the  Indians  have  but  little  to  do,  after  his 
den  is  discovered,  but  to  sit  down  and  wait  till  he 
crawls  out — blinking  and  blinded  by  the  light  in  his 
small,  black  eyes  —  and  dispatch  him  on  the  spot. 
Bears,  when  taken  in  this  way,  are  always  plump 
and  tender,  and  fat  as  possible  ;  a  perfect  mass  of 
white,  savory  oil. 

I  sometimes  think  we  partook  somewhat  of  the 
nature  of  the  bear,  in  our  little  snowy  cabin  among 
the  firs  that  winter,  for,  before  we  hardly  suspected 
it,  the  birds  came  back,  and  spring  was  fairly  upon 
us. 

When  the  snow  had  disappeared,  and  our  horses 
grew  sleek  and  fat  and  strong  again,  Klamat  and  I 
rode  far  into  the  pines  together  and  found  a  lake 
where  the  wild  geese  built  nests,  in  the  margin 
among  the  tules. 

The  Prince  and  the  Doctor  went  up  the  canon 
in  search  of  gold,  for  want  of  something  better  to 


1 86  MY   OWN   STORY. 

do,  and,  by  the  time  the  summer  set  in,  had  found 
a  rich  "  pocket "  in  a  quartz  ledge,  up  toward  the 
mountain  top. 

Paquita  had  not  returned.  We  had  come  almost 
not  to  mention  her  now  at  all.  Often  and  often, 
all  through  the  spring  and  early  summer,  I  saw  the 
Prince  stand  out  as  the  sun  went  down,  and  shade 
his  brow  with  his  hand,  looking  the  way  she  had 
gone.  I  think  it  was  this  that  kept  him  here  so 
faithfully. 

The  Doctor  sometimes  took  long  journeys  down 
toward  the  valley  to  the  south,  and  even  fell  in  with 
white  men,  as  well  as  Indians,  in  that  direction,  and 
thought  of  going  down  that  way  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  snow,  and  buildinghim  a  house  for  the  winter. 
No  one  objected  to  this;  and,  when  he  was  ready  to 
go  away,  the  Prince  compelled  him  to  take  half  the 
gold  they  had  taken  from  the  "  pocket,  "even  against 
his  utmost  remonstrance. 

11  Take  it,"  said  the  Prince,  "  every  ounce  of  it. 
Here  it  is  not  worth  that  much  lead."  And  he  put 
the  buckskin  bag  into  the  Doctor's  catenas,  and 
resolutely  buckled  them  down. 

Another  incident  worth  mentioning  in  the  con 
duct  of  the  Prince  was  his  earnest  entreaty  with  the 
Doctor  to  never  reveal  the  existence  of  the  mine, 


THE   LOST   CABIN.  1 87 

His  reason  was  of  the  noblest  kind,  sufficient,  above 
every  selfish  consideration. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  he  "gold  is  of  doubtful 
utility  to  the  world  at  best.  But  if  this  mine  is 
made  known,  a  flood  of  people  will  pour  in  here; 
the  game,  the  forests,  all  this  wild,  splendid  part 
of  nature  will  disappear.  The  white  man  and  the 
red  man  will  antagonize,  the  massacre  of  the  Klamat 
will  be  repeated;  and  for  all  this,  what  will  be  the 
consideration?" 

For  my  own  part,  I  would  banish  gold  and  silver, 
as  a  commercial  medium,  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
I  would  abolish  the  use  of  gold  and  silver  altogether, 
have  paper  currency,  and  but  one  currency  in  all 
the  \vorld.  I  would  take  all  the  strong  men  now 
in  the  mines  down  from  the  mountains,  and  build 
ships  and  cities  by  the  sea. 

These  thousands  of  men  can,  at  best,  in  a  year's 
time,  only  take  out  a  few  millions  of  gold.  A  ship 
goes  to  sea  and  sinks  with  all  these  millions,  and 
there  all  that  labor  is  lost  to  the  world  forever. 
Had  these  millions  been  in  paper,  only  a  few  hours' 
labor  would  have  been  lost.  There  are  two 
hundred  thousand  men,  the  best  and  bravest  men 
in  the  world,  wasting  the  best  years  of  their  lives 
getting  out  this  gold.  They  are  turning  over  the 


1 88  MY   OWN   STORY. 

mountains,  destroying  the  forests,  and  filling  up  the 
rivers.  They  make  the  land  unfit  even  for  savages. 
Take  them  down  from  the  mountains,  throw  one-half 
their  strength  and  energy  against  the  wild,  rich  sea- 
border  of  the  Pacific,  and  we  would  have,  instead 
of  those  broken  mountains,  muddied  rivers,  and 
ruined  forests,  such  an  Eden  as  has  not  been  seen 

by  man  since  the  days  of  Adam. 

###**** 

At  last  Paquitacame.  The  Prince  went  forth  to 
meet  her  with  his  arms  held  out,  but  she  was  too 
bashful  and  beautiful  to  touch. 

And  why  had  she  not  returned  before?  It  is  a 
sad  story,  but  soon  told. 

When  she  reached  the  region  of  her  father's  camp 
she  found  the  grass  growing  in  the  trails.  She 
found  no  sisters  to  receive  her;  no  woman  to  bring 
her  water;  not  a  human  being  in  all  the  lodges. 
The  weeds  grew  rank,  and  the  wolves  had  posses 
sion. 

The  white  men  in  her  absence  had  made  another 
successful  campaign  against  her  people.  The 
Indians  had  become  dispirited,  and,  never  over- 
provident,  finding  the  country  overrun,  the  game 
made  wild  and  scarce,  and  the  fish  failing  to  come 
up  the  muddied  Sacramento,  they  had  neglected  to 


THE   LOST  CABIN.  189 

prepare  for  winter,  and  so  had  perished  by  whole 
villages. 

These  singular  people  perish  so  easily  from  con 
tact  with  the  whites,  that  they  seem  to  me  like  the 
ripened  fruit  ready  to  fall  at  the  first  shaking. 

She  had  found  none  of  her  tribe  till  she  passed 
away  on  to  the  Tula  lakes,  and  then  of  all  her  family 
found  only  two  brothers.  These  had  now  come 
with  her  on  her  return. 

They  dismounted,  and  built  a  fire  under  the  trees 
and  apart  from  us,  and  only  slowly  came  to  com 
municate,  to  smoke,  and  show  any  friendship  at  all. 
Paquita  was  all  kindness;  but  she  had  become  a 
woman  now;  the  state  of  things  was  changed. 
Then,  the  eyes  of  her  sober,  savage  brothers  —  who 
could  ill  b'rook  the  presence  of  the  white  man,  much 
less  look  with  favor  on  familiarities — were  upon 
her,  and  she  became  a  quiet,  silent  Indian  woman, 
instead  of  the  lively  maiden  who  h  id  frolicked  on 
the  hillsides  and  wandered  through  the  woods  the 
year  before. 

They  remained  camped  here  many  days.  Klamat 
took  the  young  chiefs  up  to  the  mine —  only  a  little 
crevice  in  the  rotten  quartz  —  and  they  looked  at  it 
long  and  curiously.  Then  they  picked  up  some 
little  pieces  of  gold  that  lay  there,  looked  at  them, 


MY   OWN   STORY. 

put  them  in  their  mouths,  spat  them  out,  and  threw 
them  down  on  the  ground. 

After  that  they  came  down  to  the  cabin. 

"  You  have  saved  our  sister,"  the  eldest  said, 
among  other  things,  "  and  we  like  you  for  that,  and 
owe  you  all  that  we  can  give;  but  you  did  not  save 
her  from  a  bear  or  a  flood  —  you  only  saved  her 
from  your  own  people;  so  that  is'not  so  much.  But, 
even  if  you  did  save  one  of  us  in  the  bravest  way, 
that  is  no  reason  why  you  should  help  to  destroy  us 
all.  If  you  bring  men  and  dig  gold  here,  we  must 
all  die.  We  know  how  that  is.  You  may  stay 
here,  dig  gold,  hunt,  live  here  all  your  lives;  but,  if 
you  let  this  be  known,  and  bring  men  up  here,  we 
will  shoot  them  from  behind  the  trees,  steal  their 
horses,  and  destroy  them  every  way  we  can." 

Paquita  herself  repeated  this,  interpreted  what 
we  did  not  understand,  and  told  us  emphatically 
that  what  her  brothers  said  was  true. 

The  Prince  answered  very  kindly  and  earnestly. 
He  told  them  they  were  right.  He  told  them  that 
no  one  should  hear  of  the  mine;  and,  at  the  last,  he 
lifted  up  his  hand  to  Mount  Shasta,  and,  before  the 
God  of  the  white  man  and  the  red  man,  promised 
that  no  white  man  should  come  there,  with  his  con 
sent,  while  he  remained. 


THE  LOST  CABIN.  1 91 

Paquita  returned  soon  after  this  with  her  people 
to  her  village,  and  it  was  lonely  enough  to  be  sure. 
The  Prince  grew  restless.  We  mounted  our  horses, 
and  set  out  for  the  settlement  to  procure  ammunition 
and  supplies.  We  went  by  a  circuitous  way  to 
avoid  suspicion. 

The  Indian  boy,  our  strange  manner  of  dress,  and 
the  Prince's  lavish  use  of  money,  soon  excited  re 
mark  and  observation.  New  rich  mines  were  be 
coming  scarce,  and  there  were  hordes  of  men  wait 
ing  eagerly  in  every  camp  for  some  new  thing  to 
come  to  the  surface. 

One  day  the  Prince  met  a  child  in  an  immigrant 
camp,  the  first  he  had  seen  for  a  long  time.  He 
stopped,  took  from  his  buckskin  purse  a  rough  nug 
get,  half  quartz  and  half  gold,  gave  it  to  the  boy, 
patted  him  on  the  head,  and  passed  on.  A  very 
foolish  thing. 

After  obtaining  our  supplies,  we  set  out  to  return. 
The  evening  of  the  last  day  in  the  settlement  we 
camped  under  the  trees  by  a  creek,  close  by  some 
prospectors,  who  came  into  our  camp  after  the  blan 
kets  were  spread,  and  sat  about  the  fire  cursing 
their  hard  luck;  long-haired,  dirty-habited,  and 
ugly-looking  men  they  were.  One  was  a  sickly- 
looking  man,  a  singularly  tall,  pale  man,  who  had 


IQ2  MY   OWN   STORY. 

but  little  to  say.  There  was  .some  gold  left.  It  was 
of  no  possible  use  to  us.  The  Prince  took  him  to 
one  side,  gave  him  the  purse,  and  told  him  to  take 
it  and  go  home.  Another  extremely  silly  thing. 
This  man,  meaning  no  harm  of  course,  could  not 
keep  the  secret  of  the  few  hundred  dollars' worth  of 
gold  dust,  and  soon  the  whole  affair,  wonderfully 
magnified  too,  was  blown  all  over  the  country. 

When  we  found  we  were  being  followed,  we  led 
a  sorry  race  indeed,  and  went  in  all  directions. 
Klamat  entered  into  the  spirit  of  it,  and  played 
some  strange  forest  tricks  on  the  poor  prospectors. 

We  eluded  them  all  at  last,  and  reached  the  cabin. 
But  we  had  laid  the  foundation  for  many  a  mount 
ain  tale  and  venture. 

What  extravagant  tales  were  told!  There  was  a 
perfect  army  of  us — half  Indians,  half  white  men. 
Our  horses  were  shod  backward  —  an  old  story. 
Then,  again,  our  horses'  feet  were  bound  up  in 
gunny-bags,  so  as  to  leave  no  track.  An  impos 
sible  thing,  for  a  horse  will  not  take  a  single  step 
with  his  feet  in  muffles.  To  this  day  men  still 
search  the  Sierras  for  "the  Lost  Cabin." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

GOOD-BYE. 

WE  received  a  visit  from  the  chief  of  the  Shas- 
tas  on  our  return.  He  was  not  a  tall  man,  as  one 
would  suppose  who  had  seen  his  warriors,  but  a 
giant  in  strength.  You  would  have  said,  surely 
this  man  is  part  grizzly  bear.  He  was  bearded  like 
a  prophet. 

I  now  began  to  spend  days  and  even  weeks  in  an 
Indian  village  over  toward  the  south  in  a  canon,  to 
take  part  in  the  sports  of  the  young  men,  listen  to 
the  teachings  and  tales  of  the  old,  and  was  not  un 
happy. 

The  Prince  was  losing  his  old  cheerfulness  as 
the  summer  advanced,  and  once  or  twice  he  half 
hinted  of  taking  a  long  journey  away  to  the  world 
below. 

At  such  times  I  would  so  wish  to  ask  him  where 
was  his  home,  and  why  he  had  left  it,  but  could  not 
summon  courage.  As  for  myself,  let  it  be  here 
understood,  once  for  all,  that,  when  a  man  once 
casts  his  lot  in  with  the  Indians,  he  need  return  to 

his    friends    no    more,    unless    he    has   grown    so 
13  (193) 


194  MY    OWN   STORY. 

strong  of  soul  that  he  does  not  need  their  counte 
nance,  for  he  is,  with  them,  disgraced  forever.  I 
had  crossed  the  Rubicon. 

It  was  the  time  of  the  Autumn  Feasts,  when  the 
Indians  mdet  together  on  a  high  oak  plain,  a 
sort  of  hem  of  the  mountain,  overlooking  the  far 
valley  of  the  Sacramento,  to  celebrate  the  season 
in  dance  and  song,  and  recount  the  virtues  of 
their  dead.  On  this  spot,  among  the  oaks,  their 
fathers  had  met  for  many  and  many  a  generation. 
Here  all  were  expected  to  come  in  rich  and  gay 
attire,  and  to  give  themselves  up  to  feasting  and 
the  dance,  and  show  no  care  in  their  faces,  no 
matter  how  hard  fortune  had  been  upon  them. 

Indian  summer,  this.  A  mellowness  and  balm  in 
all  the  atmosphere;  a  haze  hanging  over  all  things, 
and  all  things  still  and  dreamful  like,  like  a  sum 
mer  sunset. 

The  manzanita  berries  were  yellow  as  gold,  the 
rich  anther  was  here,  the  maple  and  the  dogwood 
that  fringed  the  edge  of  the  plain  were  red  as  scar 
let,  and  set  against  the  wall  of  firs  in  their  dark, 
eternal  green. 

The  scene  of  the  feast  was  a  day's  ride  from  the 
cabin,  and  the  Prince  and  I  were  expected  to  at 
tend.  Paquita  would,  of  course,  be  there,  and  who 


GOOD-BYE.  195 

shall  say  we  had  not  both  looked  forward  to  this 
day  with  eagerness  and  delight? 

We  went  to  the  feast  —  rode  through  the  forest  in 
a  sort  of  dream.  How  lovely!  The  deer  were  go 
ing  in  long  bands  down  their  worn  paths  to  the  plains 
below,  away  from  the  approaching  winter.  The 
black  bears  were  fat  and  indolent,  and  fairly  shone 
in  their  rich,  oily  coats,  as  they  crossed  the  trail 
before  us. 

Hundreds  were  at  the  feast,  and  we  were  more  than 
welcome.  The  chief  came  first,  his  warriors  by  his 
side,  to  give  us  the  pipe  of  peace  and  welcome,  and 
then  a  great  circle  gathered  around  the  fire,  seated 
on  their  robes  and  the  leaves;  and,  as  the  pipe  went 
round,  the  brown  girls  danced  gay  and  beautiful, 
half  nude,  in  their  rich  black  hair  and  flowing 
robes. 

But  Paquita  was  shy.  She  would  not  dance, 
for  somehow  she  seemed  to  consider  that  this  was 
a  kind  of  savage  entertainment,  and  out  of  place 
for  her.  She  had  seen  just  enough  of  civilized  life 
to  deprive  her  of  the  pleasures  of  the  wild  and 
free. 

There  had  grown  a  cast  of  care  upon  her  lovely 
face  of  late.  She  was  in  the  secret  of  all  the 
Indians' plans.  At  least  she  was  a 'true  Indian  — 


196  MY   OWN   STORY. 

true  to  the  rights  of  her  race,  and  fully  awake  to  a 
sense  of  their  wrongs. 

She  was  surely  lovelier  now  than  ever  before;  tall, 
and  lithe,  and  graceful  as  a  mountain  lily  swayed  by 
the  breath  of  morning.  On  her  face,  through  the 
tint  of  brown,  lay  the  blush  and  flush  of  maiden 
hood  ,  the  indescribable  sacred  something  that  makes 
a  maiden  holy  to  every  man  of  manly  nature.  There 
is  a  love  that  makes  a  man  utterly  unselfish,  and 
perfectly  content  to  love  and  be  silent,  to  worship 
at  a  distance,  as  turning  to  the  holy  shrine  of 
Mecca,  to  be  still  and  bide  his  time;  caring  not  to 
possess  in  the  low,  coarse  way  that  characterizes 
your  common  lover  of  to-day,  but  choosing,  rather, 
to  go  to  battle  for  her  —  bearing  her  in  his  heart 
through  many  lands,  through  storms,  and  on  down 
to  the  doors  of  death,  with  only  a  word  of  hope,  a 
smile,  a  wave  of  the  hand  from  a  wall,  a  kiss  blown 
far,  as  he  mounts  his  battle  horse  below  and 
plunges  into  the  night.  That  is  a  love  to  live  for. 
I  say  the  knights  of  Spain,  bloody  as  they  were, 
were  a  noble  and  splendid  type  of  men  in  their  way. 

The  Prince  was  of  this  manner  of  men.  He  was 
by  nature  a  knight  of  the  brave  old  days  of  Spain, 
a  hero  born  out  of  time,  and  blown  out  of  place, 
in  the  mines  and  mountains  of  the  North. 


GOOD-BYE.  197 

Once  he  had  taken  Paquita  in  his  arms,  had  folded 
a  robe  around  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  babe.  She 
was  all — everything  to  him.  He  renounced  all 
this.  Now  he  did  not  even  touch  her  hand. 

The  old  earnestness  and  perplexity  had  come 
upon  the  Prince  again  on  our  coming  to  the  feast. 
Once,  when  the  dance  and  song  ran  swift  and  loud, 
and  all  was  merriment,  I  saw  him  standing  out  from 
the  circle  of  warriors,  of  young  maidens  and  men, 
with  folded  arms,  looking  out  on  the  land  below.  I 
had  too  much  respect,  nay  reverence,  for  this  man 
to  disturb  him.  I  leaned  against  a  tree  and  looked 
as  he  looked.  Once  his  eyes  left  the  dance  before 
him,  and  stole  timidly  toward  the  place  where 
Paquita  sat  with  her  brother  watching  the  dance. 
What  a  devotion  in  his  face.  I  could  not  under 
stand  him.  Then  he  turned  to  the  valley  again, 
tapped  the  ground  with  his  foot  in  the  old,  restless 
way,  but  his  eyes  soon  wandered  back  to  Paquita. 
At  last  my  gaze  met  his.  He  blushed  deeply,  held 
down  his  head  and  walked  away  in  silence. 

The  next  day  was  the  time  set  apart  for  feats  of 
horsemanship.  The  band  of  mustangs  was  driven 
in,  all  common  property,  and  the  men  selected  their 
horses.  The  Prince  drew  out  with  his  lasso  a  stout 
black  stud,  with  a  neck  like  a  bull.  His  mane 


198  MY   OWN   STORY. 

poured  down  on  either  side,  or  stood  erect  like  a 
crest;  a  wiry,  savage,  untrained  horse  that  struck  out 
with  his  feet,  like  an  elk  at  bay.  The  Prince  sad 
dled  him,  and  led  him  out  all  ready  now,  where 
the  other  horses  stood  in  line,  then  came  to  me, 
walked  a  little  way  to  one  side,  put  out  one  hand, 
and  with  the  other  drew  me  close  to  him,  held  down 
his  head  to  my  uplifted  face,  and  said  : 

"  Good-bye." 

I  sprang  up  and  seized  hold  of  him,  but  he  went 
on  calmly : 

"  I  must  go  away.  You  are  happy  here ;  you 
will  remain,  but  I  must  go.  After  many  years  I 
may  return.  You  may  meet  me  here  on  this  spot, 
years  and  years  from  to-day.  Yes,  it  will  be 
many  years  ;  a  long  time.  But  it  is  short  enough, 
and  long  enough.  I  will  forget  her — it  —  I  will 
forget  by  that  time,  you  see,  and,  then,  there  is  all 
the  whole  world  before  me  to  wander  in." 

He  made  the  sign  of  departure.  The  chief  came 
forward,  Paquita  came  and  stocd  at  his  side.  He 
reached  his  hands,  took  her  in  his  arms,  pressed  her 
to  his  breast  an  instant,  kissed  her  pure  brow  once, 
with  her  great  black  eyes  lifted  to  his,  but  said  no 
word. 

The  Indians  were  mute  with  wonder  and  sorrow. 


THE  DEPARTURE  OF  THE  PRINCE. 


GOOD-BYE.  199 

When  you  give  the  sign  of  going,  there  is  no  one  to 
say  nay  here.  No  one  importunes  you  to  stay  ; 
no  one  says  come  to  my  place  or  come  to 
mine.  No  such  folly.  You  know  that  you  are  wel 
come  to  one  and  all,  and  they  know,  that,  if  you 
wish  to  go,  you  wish  to  go,  and  that  is  all  there  is 
of  it.  This  is  the  highest  type  of  politeness  ;  the 
perfect  hospitality. 

The  Prince  turned  to  his  horse,  drew  his  red 
silk  sash  tighter  about  his  waist,  undid  the  lasso, 
wound  the  lariat  on  his  arm,  and  wove  his  left 
hand  in  the  flowing  mane  as  the  black  horse 
plunged  and  beat  the  air  with  his  feet.  Then  he 
set  him  back  on  his  haunches,  and  sprang  from  the 
ground:  then  forward  plunged  the  stud,  with  mane 
like  a  storm,  down  the  place  of  oaks,  pitching 
toward  the  valley. 

The  trees  seemed  to  open  rank  as  he  passed, 
and  then  to  close  again;  a  hand  was  lifted,  a  kiss 
thrown  back  across  the  shoulder,  and  he  was  gone 
—  gone  down  in  the  sea  below  us,  and  I  never 
saw  my  Prince  again  for  many  a  year.  Noble, 
generous,  self-denying  Prince  !  The  most  splendid 
type  of  the  chivalric  and  perfect  man  I  had  ever 
met. 

All  this  was  so  sudden   that  I  hardly  felt  the 


2OO  MY    OWN   STORY. 

weight  of  it  at  first,  and,  for  want  of  something  to 
do  to  fill  the  blank  that  followed,  I  mounted  my 
horse  and  took  part  in  the  sports  with  the  gayest 
of  the  gay. 

Indians  do  not  speak  of  anything  that  happens  sud 
denly.  They  think  it  over,  all  to  themselves,  for 
days,  unless  it  is  a  thing  that  requires  some  action 
or  expression  at  once,  and  they  then  speak  of  it 
only  cautiously  and  casually.  It  is  considered  very 
vulgar,  indeed,  to  give  any  expression  to  surprise, 
and  nothing  is  more  out  of  taste  than  to  talk  about 
a  thing  that  you  have  not  first  had  good  time  to 
think  about. 

During  the  day  I  noticed  that  my  catenas  were 
heavier  than  usual,  and,  unfastening  the  pockets,  I 
found   that  they  contained  all  four  of  the  bags  of 
gold. 
****»*• 

Why  had  he  left  himself  destitute?  Why  had  he 
gone  down  to  battle  with  the  world  without  a 
shield  ?  —  gone  to  fight  Goliath,  as  it  were,  without 
so  much  as  a  little  stone.  I  wanted  to  follow  him, 
and  make  him  take  the  money — all  of  it.  I  despised 
it;  it  made  me  miserable.  But  I  had  learned  to  obey 
him  —  to  listen  to  him  in  all  things.  And,  was  he 
not  a  Prince? 


GOOD  BYE.  2OI 

"  Ah  !  "  said  I  to  myself,  at  last,  "  he  has  gone 
down  to  take  possession  of  his  throne.  He  will 
cross  the  seas,  and  see  maidens  fair  indeed,  nearly 
as  lovely  in  some  respects  as  Paquita;  "  and  this 
was  my  consolation. 

"  Years  and  years,"  I  said  to  myself,  that  night, 
as  I  looked  in  the  fire,  and  the  dance  went  on; 
"  Years  and  years!  "  I  counted  it  upon  my  fingers, 

and  said:  "  I  will  be  dead  then." 

******* 

The  marriage  ceremony  of  these  people  is  not 
imposing.  The  father  gives  a  great  feast,  to  which 
all  are  invited,  but  the  bride  and  bridegroom  do 
not  partake  of  food.  A  new  lodge  is  erected  and 
furnished  more  elegant  than  any  other  of  the  vil 
lage,  by  the  women,  each  vying  with  the  other  to 
do  the  best  in  providing  their  simple  articles  of  the 
Indian  household. 

In  the  evening,  while  the  feast  goes  on,  and  the 
father's  lodge  is  full  of  guests,  the  women  and  chil 
dren  come  to  the  lodge  with  a  great  number  of 
pitch  torches,  and  two  women  enter  and  take  the 
bride  away  between  them;  the  men  all  the  time 
taking  no  heed  of  what  goes  on.  They  take  her  to 
the  lodge,  chanting  as  they  go,  and  making  a  great 
flourish  with  their  torches.  Late  at  night  the  men 


2O2  MY   OWN    STORY. 

rise  up,  and  the  father  and  mother,  or  those  stand 
ing  in  their  stead,  take  the  groom  between  them 
to  the  lodge,  while  the  same  flourish  of  torches  and 
chant  goes  on  as  before.  They  take  him  into  the 
lodge,  and  set  him  on  the  robes  by  the  bride. 
This  time  the  torches  are  not  put  out,  but  are  laid 
one  after  another  in  the  center  of  the  lodge.  And 
this  is  the  first  fire  of  the  new  pair,  which  must 
not  be  allowed  to  die  out  for  some  time.  In  fact, 
as  a  rule,  in  time  of  peace,  Indians  never  let  their 
lodge-fires  go  out  so  long  as  they  remain  in  one 
place. 

When  all  the  torches  are  laid  down  and  the  fire 
burns  bright,  they  are  supposed  to  be  married. 
The  ceremony  is  over,  and  the  company  go  away 

in  the  dark. 

******* 

Late  that  autumn,  these  Indians  made  the  mar 
riage  feast,  and  at  that  feast  neither  I  nor  the 
beautiful  Indian  girl  took  meat. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE   LAST   OF   THE    LOST   CABIN. 

THESE  Indians  use  but  few  words.  A  coward 
and  a  liar  is  the  same  with  them  ;  they  have  no 
distinct  terms  of  expressing  the  two  sins.  Some 
times  a  single  eloquent  gesture  means  a  whole  sen 
tence,  and  expresses  it,  too,  better  than  could  a 
multitude  of  words. 

1  said  to  the  old  chief  one  day: 

"  Your  language  is  very  poor ;  it  has  so  few 
words. " 

"  We  have  enough.  It  does  not  take  many 
words  to  tell  the  truth,"  he  answered. 

"  Ah,  but  we  have  a  hundred  words  to  your 
one." 

"  Well,  you  need  them." 

He  seemed  to  say,  "  Yes,  from  the  number  of  lies 
you  have  told  us,  from  the  long  treaties  that  meant 
nothing  that  you  have  made  with  us  ;  from  the 
promises  that  you  have  made  and  broken,  I  should 
say  that  you  needed  even  a  thousand  words  to  our 
one. 

The  old  Indian  arose  as  he  said  this,  and  gath- 

(*>3) 


204  MY   OWN   STORY. 

ered  his  blanket  about  his  shoulders.  His  dog  lay 
with  his  nose  on  his  two  paws,  and  his  eyes  raised 
to  his  master's. 

"  You  have  not  words  enough  in  all  your  books 
to  give  a  single  look  from  the  eyes  of  my  dog." 

He  drew  his  blanket  closer  about  him,  turned 
away,  and  the  dog  arose  and  followed  him. 

I  had  a  pocket  Bible  with  me  once,  in  his  camp. 
I  showed  it  to  the  chief,  and  undertook  to  tell  him 
what  it  was. 

"  It  is  the  promise  of  God  to  man,"  I  said,  "  His 
written  promise  to  us,  that,  if  we  do  as  He  com 
manded  us  to  do,  we  shall  live  and  be  happy  for 
ever  when  we  die." 

He  took  it  in  his  hand,  and  looked  at  the  outside 
and  inside  very  attentively. 

"Promises!     Is  it  a  treaty?" 

"  Well,  it  is  a  treaty,  perhaps;  at  least,  it  is  a 
promise,  and  He  wrote  it." 

"  I  do  not  like  promises  or  long  treaties.  I  do 
not  like  any  treaties  on  paper.  They  are  so  easy 
to  break.  The  Indian  does  not  want  his  God 
to  sign  a  paper.  He  is  not  afraid  to  trust  his 
God." 

"  But  the  promises  and  the  resurrection  ? "  I 
urged- 


THE   LAST   OF   THE   LOST   CABIN.  2O5 

He  pointed  to  the  new  leaves  on  the  tree,  the 
spears  that  were  bursting  through  the  ground, 
handed  me  the  book  and  said  no  more. 

The  Prince  was  gone,  perhaps  to  never  return. 
I  was  again  utterly  alone  with  the  Indians.  I 
looked  down  and  out  upon  the  world  below  as 
looking  upon  a  city  from  a  tower,  and  was  not 
unhappy. 

I  lived  now  altogether  with  the  chief.  His  lodge 
was  my  home ;  his  family  my  companions.  We 
rode  swift  horses,  sailed  on  the  little  mountain 
lakes  with  grass  and  tule  sails,  or  sat  down  under 
the  trees  in  summer,  where  the  wind  came  through 
from  the  sea,  and  drank  in  silently  the  glories  and 
calm  delights  of  life  together. 

"  They  will  find  your  lost  cabin  yet,"  said  the  chief, 
"  if  it  is  allowed  to  stand.  Then  they  will  search  till 
they  find  the  mine,  then  a  crowd  of  people  will 
come,  like  grasshoppers  in  the  valley  ;  my  warriors 
will  be  murdered,  my  forests  cut  down,  my  grass 
will  be  burned,  my  game  driven  off,  and  my  people 
will  starve.  As  their  father,  to  whom  they  look  for 
protection  and  support,  I  cannot  allow  itto  stand." 

"  It  shall  be  as  you  say.  Send  some  men  with 
me.  What  care  I  for  the  cabin?  and  what  is  a  mine 
of  gold  to  me  here  ?" 


206  MY   OWN   STORY. 

We  went  down,  we  burned  the  cabin  to  the 
ground. 

Years  afterward  I  passed  there,  and  all  was  wild 
and  overgrown  with  grass,  the  same  as  if  no 
man  had  ever  sat  down  and  rested  there  below  the 
boughs. 

Some  pines  that  stood  too  close  to  the  burning 
cabin  were  shorn  of  branches  on  one  side,  and, where 
the  bark  had  burned  on  that  side,  they  were  gnarled 
and  seared,  and  stood  there  parched  up  and  ugly  in 
a  circle,  as  if  making  faces  at  some  invisible  object 

in  their  midst. 

•  •  *  *  *  *  * 

And  now,  for  the  first  time,  a  plan  which  had 
been  forming  in  my  mind  ever  since  I  first  found 
myself  among  these  people  began  to  take  definite 
shape.  It  was  a  bold  and  ambitious  enterprise, 
and  was  no  less  a  project  than  the  establishment  of 
a  sort  of  Indian  Republic — "a  wheel  within  a 
wheel,"  with  the  grand  old  cone,  Mount  Shasta,  in 
the  midst. 

To  the  south,  reaching  from  far  up  on  Mount 
Shasta  to  far  down  in  the  Sacramento  Valley,  lay 
the  lands  of  the  Shastas,  with  almost  every  variety 
of  country  and  climate;  to  the  southeast  the  Pitt 
River  Indians,  with  a  land  rich  with  pastures,  and 


THE   LAST   OF  THE   LOST   CABIN.  2O/ 

plains  teeming  with  game;  to  the  northeast  lay  the 
Modocs,  with  lakes  and  pasture-lands  enough  to 
make  a  State.  My  plan  was  to  unite  these  three 
tribes  in  a  confederacy  under  the  name  of  the 
United  Tribes,  secure  by  treaty  all  the  lands  near 
the  mountain,  even  if  we  had  to  surrender  all  the 
other  lands  in  doing  so. 

It  might  have  been  called  a  kind  of  Indian  reser 
vation,  but  it  was  to  be  a  reservation  in  its  fullest 
and  most  original  sense,  such  as  those  first  allotted 
to  the  Indians.  Definite  lines  were  to  be  drawn, 
and  these  lines  were  to  be  kept  sacred.  No  white 
man  was  to  come  there  without  permission.  The 
Indians  were  to  remain  on  the  land  of  their  fathers. 
They  were  to  receive  no  pay,  no  perquisites  or 
assistance  whatever  from  the  government.  They 
were  simply  to  be  let  alone  in  their  possessions, 
with  their  rites,  customs,  religion  and  all,  unmo 
lested.  They  were  to  adopt  civilization  by  degrees 
and  as  they  saw  fit,  and  such  parts  of  it  as  they 
chose  to  adopt.  They  were  to  send  a  representa 
tive  to  the  State  and  the  national  capitals  if  they 
chose,  and  so  on  through  a  long  catalogue  of  details 
that  would  have  left  them  in  possession  of  that  lib 
erty  which  is  as  dear  to  the  Indian  as  to  any  being 
on  earth. 


208  MY   OWN   STORY. 

Filled  with  plans  for  my  little  republic,  I  now 
went  among  the  Modocs,  whom  I  had  always  half 
feared  since  the  day  they  had  killed  and  plundered 
the  Mexicans,  and  boldly  laid  the  case  before  them. 
They  were  very  enthusiastic,  and  some  of  the  old 
councilmen  named  me  chief;  yet  I  never  had  any 
authority  to  speak  of  till  too  late  to  use  it  to 
advantage. 

I  drew  maps  and  wrote  out  my  plans,  and  sent 
them  to  the  commanding  officer  of  the  Pacific 
Coast,  the  Governor  of  the  State,  and  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Republic. 

The  Indians  entered  into  it  with  all  their  hearts. 
Their  great  desire  was  to  have  a  dividing  line  or 
a  mark  that  would  say,  Thus  far  will  we  come,  and 
no  farther.  They  did  not  seem  to  care  about 
details  or  particularly  where  the  line  would  be 
drawn,  only  that  it  should  be  drawn,  and  leave 
them  secure  in  bounds  which  they  could  call  their 
own.  They  would  submit  to  almost  anything  for 
this. 

Remove  they  would  not  ;  but  they  were  tired  of 
a  perpetual  state  of  half-war,  half-peace,  that 
brought  only  a  steady  loss  of  life  and  of  land,  with 
out  any  lookout  ahead  for  the  better,  and  would 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  LOST  CABIN.  2OQ 

enter  into  almost  any  terms  that  promised  to  let 
them  and  theirs  permanently  and  securely  alone. 

How  magnificent  and  splendid  seemed  my  plan  ! 
Imagination  had  no  limit.  Here  would  be  a 
National  Park,  a  place,  one  place  in  all  the  world, 
where  men  lived  in  a  state  of  nature,  and,  when 
all  the  other  tribes  had  passed  away  or  melted  into 
the  civilization  and  life  of  the  white  man,  here 
would  be  a  people  untouched,  unchanged,  to  in 
struct  and  interest  the  traveler,  the  moralist,  all 
men. 

When  the  world  is  done  gathering  gold,  I  said, 
men  will  come  to  these  forests  to  look  at  nature, 
and  be  thankful  for  the  wisdom  and  foresight  of 
the  age  that  preserved  this  vestige  of  an  all  but 
extinct  race.  There  was  a  grandeur  in  the  thought, 
a  sort  of  sublimity,  that  I  shall  never  feel  again. 
A  fervid  nature,  a  vivid  imagination,  and,  above 
all,  the  matchless  and  magnificent  scenery,  the 
strangely  silent  people,  the  half-pathetic  stillness 
of  the  forests,  all  conspired  to  lift  me  up  into  an 
atmosphere  where  the  soul  laughs  at  doubt  and 
never  dreams  of  failure.  A  shipwrecked  race,  I 
said,  shall  here  take  refuge.  To  the  east  and  west, 
to  the  north  and  south,  the  busy  commercial  world 
may  swell  and  throb  and  beat  and  battle  like  a  sea; 


2IO  MY  OWN  STORY. 

but  on  this  island,  around  this  mountain,  with 
their  backs  to  this  bulwark,  they  shall  look  un 
troubled  on  it  all.  Here  they  shall  live  as  their 
fathers  lived  before  the  newer  pyramids  cast  their 
little  shadows,  or  camels  kneeled  in  the  dried-up 
seas. 

About  midwinter  the  chief  led  his  men  up  to 
ward  the  higher  spurs  of  the  mountain  for  a  great 
hunt.  After  some  days  on  the  headwaters  of  the 
McCloud,  at  some  hot  springs  in  the  heart  of  a  deep 
forest  and  dense  undergrowth,  we  came  upon  an 
immense  herd  of  elk.  The  snow  was  from  five  to 
ten  feet  deep.  We  had  snow-shoes,  and,  as  the  elk 
vvere  helpless,  after  driving  them  from  the  thin  snow 
and  trails  about  the  springs  into  the  deep  snow, 
the  Indians  shot  them  down  as  they  wallowed  along, 
by  hundreds. 

Camp  was  now  removed  to  this  place,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  who  preferred  to  remain  below, 
and  feasting  and  dancing  became  the  order  of  the 
winter. 

Soon  Klamat  and  a  few  other  young  and  spirited 
Indians  said  they  were  going  to  visit  some  other 
camp  that  lay  a  day  or  two  to  the  east,  and  dis 
appeared. 

In  about  a  month  they  returned.     After  the  usual 


THE   LAST   OF   THE   LOST   CABIN.  211 

Indian  silence,  they  told  a  tale  which  literally  froze 
my  blood.  Indians  had  broken  out,  killed  every 
white  man  in  the  country,  captured  thousands  of 
head  of  stock,  and  restored  the  whole  land  again  to 
their  own  dominion. 

There  were  no  women  or  children  in  the  valley 
at  the  time  of  the  massacre;  only  the  men  in  charge 
of  great  herds  of  stock. 

This  meant  a  great  deal  to  me.  I  began  to 
reflect  on  what  it  would  lead  to.  The  affair,  no 
matter  who  was  to  blame,  would  be  called  a  mas 
sacre  by  the  savages;  of  this  I  was  certain.  Possi 
bly  it  was  a  massacre,  but  the  Indian  account  of 
it  shows  them  to  have  been  as  perfectly  justified  as 
ever  one  human  being  can  be  for  taking  the  life  of 
another. 

No  one  has  ever  seemed  to  be  willing  to  under 
stand  why  I  choose  to  live  with  the  Indians  instead 
of  white  people.  Evil  motives  have  forever  been 
laid  at  my  door  because  I  was  the  only  white  person 
spared  in  this  disaster. 

I  have  been  from  that  day  to  this  charged  with 
having  led  the  Indians  in  this  massacre.  I  deny 
nothing;  simply  tell  what  I  know  and  all  I  know 
as  briefly  as  possible,  and  let  it  pass. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  EXPEDITION. 

BUT,  let  it  be  remembered,  I  had  friends  among 
the  Indians,  true  and  brave  friends.  And  they 
are  as  faithful  to  then*  friends  as  any  people  on 
earth.  Yea,  let  me  say  this  now  at  last  over  the 
graves  of  these  dead  red  men  —  I  owe  them  much. 
I  owe  no  white  man  anything  at  all.  Looking 
back  over  the  long  and  dubious  road  of  my  event 
ful  life,  I  say  this,  surely  I  owe  no  white  man  for 
favor,  or  friendship,  or  lesson  of  love,  or  forbear 
ance  of  any  sort.  Yet,  to  the  savage  red  men  that 
gathered  about  the  base  of  Mount  Shasta  to  battle 
and  to  die,  I  owe  much  —  all  that  I  am  or  can  ever 
hope  to  be. 

It  seemed  incredible,  this  massacre;  it  seemed" 
utterly  impossible  that  I  should  now  be  the  only 
living  white  person  in  all  the  land.  I  took  two 
faithful  young  Indians,  and,  descending  almost  with 
the  rapidity  of  shot  on  our  snowshoes  to  the  flow 
ers  and  green  grasses  of  the  far-off  valley,  I  found 
only  dead  bodies  and  burned  ruins. 

Let  us  hasten  on  over  the    peril  and  the    pain 

(212) 


THE   EXPEDITION.  213 

of  the  tedious  return  through  the  melting  snows  to 
my  own  camp.  Believing  myself  to  be  the  first 
white  man  to  learn  of  the  massacre,  I  now  hastened 
on  alone  to  the  nearest  white  habitation. 

The  fearful  news  had  reached  the  city  before  me. 
I  found  that  the  editor  of  the  paper,  Mr.  Irwin,  after 
ward  governor  of  California,  and  other  leading 
men,  had  placed  a  force  already  in  the  field,  and 
was  advised  to  follow  and  use  my  knowledge  of  the 
country  in  the  interests  of  civilization. 

I  thought  over  my  plans  for  the  Indian  Republic, 
doubted,  debated;  but  at  last  threw  my  energy 
into  the  expedition  against  the  rebellious  Indians. 
Having  plenty  of  gold,  I  was  soon  splendidly 
mounted,  and  on  my  way  through  the  snow  in  the 
track  of  the  new  troops. 

Just  as  the  stars  began  to  glitter  over  the  steep 
and  stupendous  walls  of  snow  which  I  was  now 
slowly  climbing,  I  caught  the  cheering  light  of 
many  camp  fires  under  the  somber  boughs  of  pine 
and  fir  and  cedar  trees  that  dotted  the  mountain 
slope.  My  splendid  horse  soon  had  his  nose  in  a 
barley  bag  along  with  others,  and  I  broke  bread 
with  as  motley  a  set  of  men  as  ever  grouped  about 
any  camp  fire  on  this  earth.  Could  Shakespeare 
have  but  seen  that  gang!  Description  at  my  hand 


214  MY   OWN   STORY. 

would  be  impossible.  Perhaps  twenty-five  of  these 
men  had  lost  brother,  father,  friend,  fortune,  in  the 
massacre.  These  were  sober  and  quiet  enough. 
Perhaps  a  like  number  had  lost  nothing,  having  had 
nothing  to  lose,  and  were  now  merely  adventurers, 
on  their  way  out  to  plunder  the  dead  possibly. 
Perhaps  a  like  number  were  of  the  lowest  form  of 
humanity;  for  the  jails  had  been  given  a  holiday. 
Janus  and  the  jail!  The  old  Roman  deity,  the 
god  of  battles,  and  the  Yreka  mining  camp  in  Cali 
fornia.  The  world  is  round,  and  history  keeps  on 
reading  the  same  old  page  in  tireless  repetition. 
Janus  and  the  open  jail!  And  these  men  were  to 
be  my  companions  through  a  campaign  of  long 
and  savage  warfare! 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

A   MAIDEN   AND   A    LETTER. 

THE  braying  pack-mules,  the  bellowing  cattle, 
the  impatient  horses  pawing  in  the  hard,  deep 
snow,  and  over  and  above  all  this  the  yelling  of 
wholly  drunken  or  half-sober  men,  who  now  for  the 
first  time  were  confronted  by  the  fact  that  they  had 
to  either  cook  or  go  hungry  —  all  this,  along  with 
the  many  bright  big  camp-fires  flashing  over  the 
mountains  of  snow  under  the  dense  and  sable  pines, 
made  a  scene  Miltonic,  demoniac,  majestic. 

To  forecast  the  entire  annihilation  of  this  mob, 
calling  itself  the  "  Army  of  Northern  California," 
had  not  been  a  hard  task.  Most  of  the  men  had 
pistols  in  their  belts,  but  their  guns  leaned  in  hope 
less  neglect,  wet  and  empty,  against  the  pines. 
The  Indians  could  easily  glide  in  on  the  crusted 
snow  from  the  darkness  that  environed  us  and 
tomahawk  the  last  man. 

But  the  next  morning,  brilliant  with  snow  and 
sunlight,  found  the  men  sleeping  peacefully.  One 
by  one  they  crawled  forth  from  their  blankets,  now 

sunken  heavily  in  the  snow   from    the  weight  and 

(215) 


2l6  MY   OWN   STORY. 

warmth  of  from  two  to  ten  half- drunken  forms  of 
humanity,  and  stared  hopelessly  about.  The  great 
roaring  fires  of  the  night  before  had  sunken  deep 
down  in  the  melting  snow.  Only  here  and  there 
the  embers  of  some  huge  pine  log  still  held  fire 
away  down  in  the  smoke-blackened  pit  that  yawned 
at  the  feet  of  the  California  Volunteers  in  their 
blankets.  From  under  the  low  boughs  of  a  dwarf 
yew  tree,  where  I,  along  with  my  horse,  had  spent 
the  night,  apart  from  the  tumultuous  crowd,  I  could 
see  little  groups  of  men  gathering  on  the  side  next 
toward  the  little  city,  away  below  the  snow,  and  a 
day's  journey  behind  us.  These  little  groups  would 
accumulate,  like  rolling  balls  of  snow,  and  then 
break  off",  and  silently  but  speedily  turn  their  backs 
on  the  half-awakened  camp.  They  had  had  enough 
of  the  first  great  campaign  against  the  murderous 
Modocs.  There  remained  at  informal  roll-call  only 
two  classes,  the  best  and  the  worst.  The  worst 
cared  not,  or  dared  not,  to  return  to  prison  fare, 
and  the  best  of  the  men  who  had  gotten  up  the 
sudden  expedition,  felt  that  the  eyes  of.the  State 
were  on  them  ;  besides,  that  they  had  the  massacre 
to  avenge  ;  to  recover  lost  estates  ;  to  reclaim  once 
more  to  civilization  a  region  as  large  as  all  New 


A   MAIDEN   AND   A   LETTER.  217 

England.  These  men  could  not  desert  now.  But 
what  a  dismal,  smoky,  doughy,  dreadful  breakfast! 

As  we  sat  or  rather  stood  at  breakfast,  a  tin  cup 
of  coffee  in  the  right  hand  and  a  sandwich  of  dough 
and  burnt  bacon  in  the  other,  two  tall  and  comely 
Indian  warriors  stood  over  like  silhouettes  against 
the  rising  sun  on  the  crest  of  the  snowy  mountain 
before  us.  Instantly  I  knew  them  for  my  two  young 
friends  who  had  gone  down  into  the  valley  of  death 
with  me  when  we  had  first  heard  of  the  massacre. 

Take  a  map  and  trace  the  route  of  my  travel  since 
leaving  my  own  camp,  and  you  will  see  that  in  three 
days  I  had  made  almost  the  entire  circuit  of  the 
grandest  andsublimest  snow  peak  in  all  the  world. 
I  was  now  not  forty  miles  from  my  own  camp,  my 
own  Indians.  These  swift  and  splendid  young  fel 
lows  had  kept  promise,  and  were  coming  to  tell  me 
how  things  now  stood.  Their  information,  what 
ever  it  might  be,  was  of  the  greatest  importance. 
Did  the  compact  with  the  Modocs  still  hold  good? 
Were  Pitt  River  and  Modoc  and  Shasta  still  friendly? 
or  had  they  quarreled  over  the  plunder,  after  the 
fashion  of  white  nations?  All  this  was  important 
to  know. 

But  such  a  panic!  Pistols  in  the  air  instantly! 
A  dozen,  forty,  fifty  shots!  The  two  tall  and 


218  MY   OWN    STORY. 

shapely  figures  melted  back  and  away  as  they  had 
come.  And  that  was  all —  all  except  a  "  stampede  " 
of  horses,  cattle,  mules,  men!  The  cattle  first 
took  fright  at  this  apparition  —  those  two  shapely 
and  shadowy  savages  on  the  steep,  deep  snow  under 
the  pines  that  lifted  before  us  —  and  they,  like  the 
men  in  the  early  morning,  started  for  the  world  be 
low!  Then  the  mules,  madly  braying,  followed  the 
bellowing  cattle.  Then  the  horses.  Then  some 
of  the  men  dashed  bravely  down  the  mountain  after 
their  horses.  And  they  never  came  back — cattle 
horses,  mules  or  men! 

Rodgers,  the  banker,  whose  father  had  fallen  in 
the  massacre,  pulled  the  remnant  of  men  together 
that  afternoon,  had  what  few  cattle  butchered  that 
had  lodged  in  the  snow,  and,  as  night  came  on  and 
the  crust  of  deep  snow  hardened,  the  little  band 
set  forward  silently,  slowly,  in  single  file,  through 
the  deep,  solemn  woods  to  cross  the  Sierras.  Each 
man  led  a  horse  and  drew  a  sled.  The  sled  was 
often  only  the  hide  of  a  bullock,  with  blankets, 
bread,  bacon,  arms,  ammunition,  anything  indeed 
that  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  man  who  drew  the  sledge 
in  the  general  distribution  of  provisions.  Here 
were  stout,  daring,  audacious  hearts  now.  There 
is  not  room  or  need  to  say  more.  But  pray  give 


A   MAIDEN   AND    A   LETTER.  2 19 

this  brave  little  remnant  of  an  army  tender  respect. 
Napoleon  on  the  Alps,  the  hunchback  Hannibal 
before  him,  were  simply  luxurious  robbers  in  com 
parison  with  this  sobered  and  earnest  little  string 
of  men  on  their  tortuous  way  through  the  pines  to 
recover  a  kingdom  that  had  been  lost  to  civiliza 
tion.  Cortez,  drawing  his  ships  by  piecemeal  over 
the  isthmus,  knew  nothing  half  so  terrible  in  that 
warm  and  luxurious  land.  For  here  with  us,  on 
the  very  first  night,  nearly  every  man  had  feet, 
face  or  hands  badly  frozen.  And  the  wolves! 
Before  it  was  yet  quite  full  dawn  we  were  com 
pelled  to  form  a  solid  circle  with  our  faces  to  the 
wolves,  our  sleds  and  horses  in  the  center.  And 
such  beautiful  teeth!  We  sat  down  on  our  sleds 
facing  the  wolves.  The  wolves  promptly  sat  down 
right  before  us,  their  great  red  tongues  lolling  out 
of  their  hungry  mouths,  their  beautiful  white  teeth 
glistening  in  perilous  contrast.  Two  sleds  of  beef 
had  already  been  captured  and  instantly  devoured. 
"  Look  here!  I've  cut  myself  somehow,"  whis 
pered  one  of  the  men  who  had  lost  a  sled.  We  only 
discovered  that  he  was  hurt  by  the  blood  that  made 
the  white  snow  red.  This  poor  fellow  was  reputed 
to  be  a  professional  pickpocket  when  at  home  in  the 
enjoyment  of  civilization  and  liberty.  But  he  was 


22O  MY   OWN   STORY. 

a  good  soldier  here,  and  did  not  even  cry  out  when 
a  wolf  tore  away  a  handful  of  flesh  from  his  leg; 
but  he  merely  laid  it  to  some  accidental  awkward 
ness  of  his,  had  his  leg  bandaged  as  we  all  sat  there, 
shivering  and  looking  down  into  a  thousand  hungry 
throats,  waiting,  praying  for  sunrise.  But  had  that 
poor  pickpocket  by  sign  or  sound  indicated  that  the 
wolves  had  begun  to  eat  our  men  as  well  as  our 
provisions,  there  would  probably  have  been  a  two- 
second  panic!  Then  some  few  white  bones  on  the 
bloody  snow  —  the  red  epitaph  over  the  common 
grave  of  the  "  Army  of  Northern  California." 

When  light  came  and  the  wolves  went  back  a 
little  from  our  faces,  we  made  roaring  fires  and 
broiled,  or  rather  burned,  our  beef,  so  that  it  would 
be  less  heavy  and,  finally,  less  attractive  to  the 
wolves  in  these  terrible  marches  at  night.  While 
this  was  being  done  I  posted  on  alone  with  Captain 
Rodgers,  whom  I  had  come  to  know  and  greatly 
respect,  if  not  to  quite  yet  trust,  to  see,  if  possible, 
if  there  was  any  abatement  in  the  tremendous  depth 
of  snow,  for  our  sleds  were  worn  and  broken,  our 
horses  were  weak  and  failing  for  want  of  food. 
After  an  hour  or  so  we  crossed  a  huge  bear  track, 
or,  rather,  what  Rodgers  called  a  bear  track.  It  was 
simply  the  track  of  about  twenty  Modocs  on  the 


A   MAIDEN   AND   A   LETTER.  221 

war-path !  They  were  going  toward  my  own  camp. 
But  I  kept  my  own  counsel.  There  was  no  turn 
ing  back  now.  To  tell  the  worn  band  of  men  that 
the  Modoc  was  also  with  us  would  have  insured  a 
sort  of  paralysis.  It  was  push  on  now  or  perish. 

This  "  bear  track"  at  this  time  and  place  could 
mean  but  one  thing  —  and  how  you  need  a  map  of 
the  whole  thing  here  —  and  that  was  war  between 
the  three  Indian  tribes  that  hovered  about  the  base 
of  Mount  Shasta.  Either  this,  or  the  Modocs 
were  merely  on  their  way  to  my  camp  for  plunder. 
This  broad  bear  track  was  pointing  direct  for  either 
my  camp  or  the  scalps  of  my  Indians.  In  either 
case  the  only  immediate  danger  to  the  little  army 
was  the  danger  of  a  panic.  But  this  is  the  most 
fearful  danger  that  any  man  has  to  meet  in 
war,  especially  in  the  wilderness,  where  the  wild 
beasts,  where  even  the  elements,  conspire  to  destroy. 

Captain  Rodgers  sat  down  to  rest,  and  I  went  on 
alone  to  the  top  of  a  bold  arid  tremendous  mount 
ain  of  snow,  from  which  the  grasses  and  flowers  of 
the  desolated  valley  could  be  seen.  It  was  here 
that  I  had  rested  with  my  two  young  Indians,  both 
on  going  to  and  returning  from  the  scene  of  mas 
sacre.  We  had  left  a  letter  here,  in  Indian  charac 
ters,  and,  as  these  two  Indians  who  had  created  the 


222  MY    OWN   STORY. 

panic  before  mentioned  had  probably  passed  this 
way,  I  hoped  to  find  a  new  letter  from  them  here. 
I  was  not  disappointed.  It  took  some  patient 
search,  some  circuitous  and  tedious  delay,  which  I 
have  not  time  to  set  down,  but  this  is  the  letter  I 
found  on  the  inner  side  of  a  scale  of  sugar-pine 
bark.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  sugar-pine  tree  is 
always  used  by  the  Shasta  Indians.  You  might 
search  the  forest  in  vain  for  any  sign  on  any  other 
tree  than  the  sugar-pine. 

To  translate  this  letter  may  be  tedious,  but  it 
is  absolutely  necessary.  In  the  first  place,  the 
arrow  is  my  name.  The  five  dots  are  merely  com 
plimentary  adjectives,  as  if  to  say:  "My  five 
times  brave  and  upright  and  five  times  faithful 
brother."  You  see  these  Indians  never  count  more 
than  five.  If  they  wish  to  say  "  six,"  they  simply 
say  "  five  and  one,"  and  so  on.  Twenty-five  is 
told  by  saying  five  times  five.  The  arrow  was 
given  me  as  the  sign  of  my  name,  because,  as  told 
before,  I  l«d  been  dangerously  shot  in  the  face 
with  an  arrow.  The  moon,  dry  and  cold,  and  just 
so  many  days  old,  is  the  date  of  the  letter.  And 
now  here  is  all  the  news  ;  and  most  important  it 
was,  as  you  will  see.  The  sign  of  the  Modoc  is  the 
reed,  or  rather  the  tule  ;  a  long,  slim  line  represents 


THB  LETTER. 


A   MAIDEN   AND   A   LETTER.  223 

the  tule.  This  shows  the  early  history  of  the 
Modoc  on  his  "  floating  islands  "  among  the  reeds 
and  tules  of  the  lakes.  The  awkward  figure,  looking 
like  a  demoralized  hour-glass,  represents  the  Pitt 
River  Indians.  You  see  they  come  by  this  hour- 
'•  glass  from  an  immemorial  custom  of  defending 
themselves  against  invasion  by  keeping  a  continual 
girdle  of  blind  pits  drawn  around  the  edge  of  their 
vast  and  fertile  valley.  As  these  blind  pits  had 
sharpened  elk  and  deer  antlers  at  the  bottom,  to  say 
nothing  of  deadly-pointed  spears  set  point  upward, 
you  may  well  understand  that  they  were  terrible 
enough  to  give  a  name  to  any  people.  And  do 
you  see  here  the  tule,  or  reed,  although  badly 
broken,  is  thrust  downward  entirely  through  the  pit? 
You  can  easily  read  that  the  battle  was  a  bloody 
one,  and  many  Modocs  were  killed,  as  well  as  many 
more  of  their  enemies. 

And  what  does  the  awkward  and  helpless  and 
overturned  heart  mean?  And  what  is  the  round 
and  helpless  little  circle  for?  Ah,  me!  If  I  were 
only  permitted  to  write  of  that.  If  I  had  only  con 
tracted  to  write  of  love,  and  not  entirely  of  war,  in 
this  story,  then  I  could  tell  alh  But  surely  I  may 
be  indulged  to  explain  this  tender  little  postscript 
to  this  thoughtful  and  loving  letter.  Briefly,  then, 


224  MY    OWN   STORY. 

the  year  before  some  half  hostile  and  wholly  wild 
Indians  had  visited  my  camp  with  a  white  girl,  whom 
they  proposed  to  sell  for  two  horses.  The  girl 
could  not  talk  to  me  or  understand  a  word.  She 
had  been  a  captive  since  a  baby,  and,  as  she  did 
not  want  to  come  to  me,  and  as  I  would  have  surely 
been  misunderstood,  I  did  not  buy  her,  but  waited, 
hoping  some  white  men  might  come  my  way  and 
help  me  with  their  presence  and  advice.  And  that 
was  all;  I  had  never  seen  her  any  more.  But  I 
had  kept  up  constant  inquiry  for  her,  and  had  sent 
word  to  Lieutenant  Crook,  now  General  Crook,  and 
famous  in  many  wars,  who  was  then  in  charge  of 
the  nearest  military  post,  of  the  fact  about  this  poor 
white  girl  prisoner.  Of  course,  when  the  massacre 
took  place,  the  first  question  in  my  mind  was  as  to 
the  fate  of  the  white  girl  who  was  a  prisoneramong 
that  nomadic  band  of  savages. 

Did  I  for  get  to  say  that  she  was  beautiful?  Beau 
tiful  she  was  as  any  dream  of  beauty.  She  was  sad 
and  silent,  piteously  sad.  She  stood  pulling  at 
the  tasselcd  tops  of  some  tall  grass  at  the  side  of 
the  trail,  as  the  Indians  sat  on  their  ponies  barter 
ing.  That  was  all  sRe  did,  and  said  nothing.  She 
only  looked  at  me  once,  out  of  her  great  sad  eyes, 
that  nearly  all  the  time  kept  looking  down.  And 


A    MAIDEN   AND   A   LETTER.  225 

she  did  not  speak,  in  any  tongue,  when  I  spoke  to 
her.  And  she  would  not  come  to  me  when  I  asked 
her  to.  Nor  did  she  give  me  her  hand  when  I 
offered  her  mine. 

Let  the  fact  be  at  once  and  frankly  confessed 
that  it  is  doubtful  if  I  should  have  gone  down  into 
the  valley  of  death  after  the  massacre  but  for  the 
memory  and  the  hope  of  this  beautiful,  sad  and 
silent  girl. 

And  this  brings  us  back  to  the  postscript  of  the 
Indian's  letter  on  a  bit  of  sugar-pine  bark,  which 
may  be  briefly  translated  thus  :  "  As  for  the  matter 
of  the  beautiful  girl  whose  fate  and  sad  fortune  has 
quite  turned  your  tender  heart  upside  d'own,  we 
can  only  say  that  we  have  learned  nothing  at  all ; 
and  all  our  search  and  inquiry  has  ended  where  \ve 
began:  in  this  narrow  little  circle." 

And  now  let  us  return  to  the  cold  and  cruel  page 
of  war,  and  forget,  so  far  as  possible,  the  sad  face  and 
the  great  lustrous  eyes  that  may  still  be  seen  after 
all  these  years  looking  out  through  "  The  Songs  of 
the  Sierras. "  It  is  best  to  try  to  believe,  that,  after 
all,  she  was  wholly  indifferent  to  her  condition.  If 
one  could  only  think  of  her  as  a  half-savage,  as  a 
Mexican  girl,  as  anything  almost  but  a  sensitive, 

sad  and  shrinking  captive,  silent  from  the  very  awe 

15 


226  MY    OWN   STORY. 

and  calamity  of  her  position,  from  the  memory  of 
a  dead  mother  in  the  grass  with  her  babes  about 
her,  the  father  falling  gun  in  hand,  dying  to  de 
fend  her  !  Oh  the  untold  tragedies  written  in 
blood  on  these  forest  leaves  !  Let  us  hasten  along. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

A   WILD    CAMPAIGN. 

"  LET  us  sacrifice  to  the  gods,  as  did  good  old 
Ulysses,"  said  Captain  Rcdgers  that  night,  as  we 
were  again  about  to  set  forward  in  that  dread 
ful  march  through  the  wilderness  —  the  wolves  — 
the  snow!  And,  in  imitation  of  the  grand  old 
cattle-thief  of  the  Iliad,  we  laid  bones,  hides,  all 
parts,  indeed,  that  we  did  not  want  —  as  did  old 
Ulysses — on  the  roaring  log  fires,  as  we  filed 
past,  in  a  long  and  dreary  black  line  over  and 
through  the  white  snow.  And,  if  the  "  savor 
thereof"  was  not  "  sweet  to  the  nostrils  of  the 
gods,"  it  certainly  was  pleasant  to  the  wolves. 
These  gaunt  and  ghastly  creatures  had  already 
formed  a  circle,  a  slowly  narrowing  circle  of  white 
teeth;  but  the  smell  of  roast  bones  and  burning 
hides  was  too  potent  an  attraction  for  them  to 
abandon,  and  we  soon  had  the  infinite  satisfaction 
of  leaving  the  greater  part  of  these  shaggy  and 
sharp-toothed  creatures  sitting  in  solemn  circle 
around  the  edge  of  our  deserted  camp,  their 

noses  and  long  necks  reaching  forward.     All  night 

(227) 


228  MY   OWN   STORY. 

and  all  next  day  that  weary  and  worn  line  of  men 
struggled  on  in  sullen  silence  toward  the  summit 
of  the  high,  bald  mountain,  from  which  the  great 
valley  with  its  grasses  and  its  gorgeous  flowers 
could  be  seen.  Sleds,  horses,  men,  and,  most 
important  of  all,  even  guns  and  ammunition,  lay 
along  that  line  of  march  almost  from  one  end  to  the 
other.  The  men  were  too  weak  and  worn  to  fight 
or  even  quarrel  among  themselves  any  more. 
And  that  is  saying  they  were  pretty  weak. 

A  warm  south  wind  had  been  soughing  through 
the  towering  pines  almost  from  the  moment  we  set 
out  from  the  camp  of  wolves.  This  singular  bit  of 
good  fortune  saved  us,  or  at  least  many  of  us, 
from  being  literally  eaten  alive.  For  the  warm 
winds  and  the  melting  snows  drove  the  wolves  back 
toward  their  haunts  in  the  high  Sierras,  or  at  least 
kept  them  from  crowding  us  too  closely.  And  now 
we  were  beset  by  a  singular  bird,  the  garrulous 
magpie.  This  gaudy  bird  of  gray  and  black  and 
white  and  parti-colored  plumage  had  been  increas 
ing  in  numbers  from  the  day  we  first  began  this 
inarch  through  the  Sierras.  And  now  with  the 
warm  weather  they  were  in  clouds.  From  the  first 
this  noisy  and  insolent  bird  had  sat  on  the  backs  of 
our  pack  animals  where  their  backs  were  sore,  and 


A   WILD    CAMPAIGN.  22Q 

literally  eaten  them  alive.  And  now  they  had 
grown  so  audacious  that  they  would  perch  on  even 
the  best  of  our  animals,  and  pick  at  their  eyes.  We 
had  to  blanket  and  blindfold  gur  saddle  horses  to 
keep  them  from  being  devoured  alive  by  these  mag 
pies.  I  have  mentioned  the  fact  that  the  winter  had 
been  one  of  incredible  severity,  and  this  may  ac 
count  in  some  sort  for  this  plague  of  birds,  as  well 
as  wolves,  on  the  summit  of  that  high,  bald  mount- 
ain,.with  the  green  sea  of  grass  rolling  in  billows  at 
its  base. 

But  how  glorious  was  this  glad  face  of  nature, 
after  the  long  and  continued  and  most  miserable 
and  inglorious  contact  with  the  face  of  man!  Never 
shall  I  forget  those  far-away  flowers;  the  perfume 
of  them  that  came  up  to  us  in  the  snow  from  their 
frank  and  open  hearts.  There  was  a  fringe  of  yel 
low  on  the  outer  line  of  the  great  green  valley. 
Buttercups!  millions  and  myriads  of  millions  of 
golden  buttercups!  And  the  California  poppy! 
Away  out  in  the  heart  of  the  valley,  where  the  two 
rivers,  surging  full  from  the  melting  snows,  gath 
ered  their  waters  from  the  lakes  that  almost  en 
vironed  the  valley,  lay  miles  and  miles  of  snow- 
white  hyacinths.  This  wild  hyacinth  is  odorless 
here,  but  it  is  perfect  in  its  beauty.  In  the  heart 


23O  MY   OWN   STORY. 

of  this  wild  white  sea  of  sudden-born  blossoms 
slowly  rose  the  smoke  of  many  wigwams.  The 
Indians  had  gathered  their  forces  and  taken  up 
their  defense  on  one  of  the  many  islands.  This 
was  to  be  our  battlefield.  The  plan  of  campaign 
formed  itself  almost  instantly  in  my  mind,  and  that 
feature  of  the  work  before  me  was  dismissed.  I 
did  not  like  to  think  of  that.  I  had  had  enough  of 
strife,  of  hard  and  horrible  enmity  with  man.  I 
wanted  the  flowers  now.  I  wanted  peace,  rest.  But 
above  all,  I  wanted  to  once  more  see  the  sad,  sweet 
face  of  that  silent  captive  who  had  been  brought  to 
me  in  my  own  camp  only  the  year  before.  If  I 
could  only  find  her,  only  once  seeher  face,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  the  hard  campaign  with  these  coarse  and 
brutal  men  could  be  forever  remembered  as  a  gala 
day. 

From  my  journal,  kept  regularly  all  this  time, 
but  mostly  in  the  Indian  sign,  as  that  was  briefer, 
I  read  that,  "  on  the  first  new  moon  of  the  third 
month  we  were  camped  on  snow  seventeen  feet 
deep,  with  flowers  only  four  miles  distant."  I  read 
further  that  "  on  the  third  day  of  the  new  moon  we 
had  four  fights  over  my  election  as  captain,"  Cap 
tain  Rodgers  being  deposed  by  the  popular  vote  of 
the  roughs.  I,  a  boy,  sensitive,  shy,  frail  and 


A   WILD   CAMPAIGN.  231 

slender  as  a  girl,  was  in  full  command  of  this 
miserable  squad  of  humanity,  with  pickpockets 
and  jail  birds  in  the  majority. 

I  set  to  work  at  once  to  descend  through  the 
fast-melting  snow,  and  open  an  aggressive  war  even 
before  the  arrival  of  re-enforcements  from  the 
south. 

By  this  time  Rodgers,  the  deposed  captain,  and 
I  had  become  as  brothers.  I  told  him  of  the  war 
that  had  risen  between  the  three  tribes,  to  the  exist 
ence  of  which  we  surely  owed  the  preservation  of 
this  motley  mob.  "  All  Gaul  is  divided  into  three 
parts,"  said  Rodgers,  gayly,  quoting  from  Caesar  in 
good  Latin. 

Does  it  read  strangely  to  you  that  this  man,  here 
in  these  remote  mountains,  nearly  forty  years  ago, 
should  also  have  shouted  out  in  Greek  the  glorious 
cry  of  the  Ten  Thousand  when  he,  and  he  alcne, 
stood  at  my  side  and  first  saw  that  sea  of  flowers 
below  ?  Well,  strange  or  not  strange,  I  can  only 
tell  the  facts. 

How  bitter  are  the  little  feuds  between  helpless 
little  settlements  and  frontier  towns.  And  Josephus 
tells  us  that  there  never  was  in  all  history  such 
hatred  as  arose  between  the  followings  of  John  and 


232  MY    OWN    STORY. 

of  Simon  at  the  time  when  Titus,  the  son  of  Ves 
pasian,  sat  down  in  siege  around  about  Jerusalem. 

Well,  in  these  awful  enmities,  read  the  reason 
and  secret  of  our  being  able  to  pierce  the  heart  of 
a  hostile  Indian  country,  to  cut  through  the  heart 
of  the  Sierras,  indeed,  at  a  time  worse  than  mid 
winter,  to  sit  down  at  the  door  of  a  brave  and 
powerful  enemy,  without  firing  a  gun.  The  "  three- 
cornered  "  war  among  the  Indians  made  our 
approach  not  only  possible  but  perfectly  secure. 
The  Modoc  was  delighted  to  see  us  descend  upon 
the  Pitt  River,  while  he  paid  his  attention  to  the 
Shastas.  They  did  not  greatly  dread  us  then.  They 
did  not  hate  us  half  so  bitterly  as  they  hated  one 
another. 

It  was  full-blown  spring  when  we  set  foot  among 
the  flowers  at  the  base  of  the  terrible  spurs  of 
Mount  Shasta.  The  men  shouted  with  wild  and 
tumultuous  delight.  The  horses,  relieved  of  their 
loads,  rolled  on  the  knee-deep  grass;  they  threw 
their  weary  heels  in  the  air  on  the  third  day,  and,  like 
the  men,  began  to  grow  impatient  of  peace.  Four 
fights  I  find  recorded  for  the  third  day.  Indians 
began  to  hover  about  us.  They  were  tightening 
their  lines,  and  drawing  their  numbers,  in  increased 
strength,  to  a  solid  circle,  as  did  the  wolves  back 


A   WILD    CAMPAIGN.  233 

i 

in  the  fearful  heights  of  snow.     The  singular  good 
fortune  of  the  little  army  in  escaping  all  peril  thus 
far,  had  made  it  insolent.     It  was  ambitious  to  do 
battle  before  the  arrival  of  re-enforcements. 
"  When  will  we  fight  these  red  devils  ?  " 
"  We  will  fight  when  I  get  ready  to  fight." 
That  night   the   mob  held  another  election,  and 
there  was   a   new  captain.     This  time  the  toughs 
chose  one  of  their  own  number,  the  best  of  their 
number,  it  is  true.     But  that  is  not  high  praise  of 
the  new  captain. 

We  had  fired  a  good  many  shots,  and  we  had 
also  gathered  up  many  arrows  that  had  been  sent 
us  in  return.  But  what  the  new  captain  most  de 
sired  was  not  a  dead,  but  a  live  Indian,  one  who 
could  tell  him  how  near  re-enforcements  were,  and 
also  tell  the  strength  and  condition  of  hostile  camps. 
And,  with  the  capture  of  a  live  Indian  in  view,  the 
new  captain,  not  at  all  a  commander,  signaled  his 
election  to  office  by  taking  off  his  shoes  and  taking 
after  and  attempting  to  run  down  and  capture  an 
Indian  with  his  own  hand. 

After  that,  discipline  was  utterly  out  of  the  ques 
tion.  Besides,  we  were  now  on  quarter-rations.  A 
secure  camp  was  selected  and  fortified,  and  we  sat 
down  to  wait  for  re-enforcements.  And  while  wait- 


234  MY   OWN   STORY. 

ing,  and  with  only  quarter-rations  to  keep  up  their 
strength,  thesegallant  men  certainly  fought;  fought 
one  another  !  And  these  battles  were  not  entirely 
among  the  toughs,  either.  I  had  a  young,  fair- 
haired  friend,  a  boy  in  fact,  and  the  youngest  of  the 
expedition  except  myself.  And  it  became  abso 
lutely  a  matter  of  necessity  that  either  this  fair- 
haired  boy,  or  Rodgers,  or  myself  should  fight  one 
of  the  insolent  bullies. 

And  so  this  boy  finally  went  at  his  work.  He 
fought  like  a  Trojan,  and  refused  to  cry  out.  He 
was  beaten — mercilessly  beaten.  He  had  ex 
pected  that,  but  he  refused  to  cry  out,  and  the 
"  tough's  "  friends,  not  so  hard  at  heart,  after  all, 
interfered  at  last  of  their  own  will,  and  led  both  boy 
and  bully,  each  one  blinded  from  blood  and  bruises, 
down  to  the  river  bank,  and,  as  they  washed  their 
wounds,  praised  my  boy  friend  gloriously  for  his 
valor. 

Ah,  me,  my  fair-haired  little  "  Lum,"  this  was 
long,  long  ago;  and  your  yellow  hair,  like  mine 
own,  is  taking  on  the  whiteness  of  the  snowbanks 
that  first  knew  our  friendship.  But,  Lum  Ray,  I 
love  you  now  as  I  loved  you  then.  It  was  for  me, 
a  frailer  boy,  you  fought,  Lum  Ray,  years  and 
years  ago,  on  the  bloody  grass  there  by  the  bending 


A   WILD    CAMPAIGN.  235 

river,  and  I  lay  this  little  tribute  of  thanks  at  your 
feet. 

Reader,  do  you  know  that  oftentimes  I  dislike 
to  tell  all  that  I  might  tell  of  these  old  days?  I 
"tell  the  truth,"  but  oftentimes  not  "the  whole 
truth."  The  world  has  gone  forward  far  in  the 
path  of  civilization  since  then.  Those  terrific  "  fist- 
fights  "  wereascommon,  and,  indeed,  almost  ascom- 
pulsory  in  those  days,  if  you  meant  to  maintain 
yourself,  as  the  breathing  of  air. 

And  now  let  us  speed  forward  with  the  conclu 
sion  of  the  war.  After  a  ten-days  siege,  starvation, 
fights  —  both  in  camp  among  ourselves,  and  out 
side  with  savages  that  hovered  unpleasantly  close 
about  —  the  long-expected  re-enforcements  came 
from  the  south.  And  then  we  feasted!  And  then 
we  fought  a  little  more  among  ourselves,  testing 
the  mettle  of  the  new  men,  as  it  were;  then  another 
election;  then  bloody  work  began!  for  the  new 
company  had  captured  a  small  camp  of  Indians, 
and  from  them  learned  that  there  was  a  white 
woman  prisoner  on  one  of  the  islands  in  the  great 
valley.  And  my  heart  was  in  my  throat.  Was  it 
really  she?  What  cared  I  for  the  desolated  valley 
and  the  dead!  What  cared  I  if  one  or  one  dozen 
white  women  still  survived  the  massacre?  My  only 


236  MY   OWN   STORY. 

concern  was,  could  it  be  this  one,  whose  sad  and 
silent  face  I  had  looked  upon,  this  piteously  beau 
tiful  girl? 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE     LOST    CAPTIVE. 

Do  YOU  know  that  these  Indians  here  used  the 
'yew-wood  bow  of  which  the  Bible  speaks?  Singu 
lar  that  the  Modoc,  the  "  yeoman  "  of  Scotland  and 
David's  men  in  the  Bible  should  alike  have  used  the 
wood  of  the  yew  tree  for  their  artillery! 

But  let  us  get  forward  to  the  battle  in  the  water. 
The  melting  snow  had  made  the  Indians  on  the 
islands  more  than  secure  up  to  this  time,  for  we  had 
no  boats;  but  now  the  waters  had  flowed  on,  and 
the  low  and  fast  subsiding  condition  of  the  spring 
freshet  was  making  the  place  accessible  on  horses. 
On  the  last  days  of  April  we  surrounded  and 
"  stormed  "  the  island  on  horseback.  In  most  places 
the  water  was  too  deep,  and  the  men  only  lost  their 
arms  and  their  temper  while  floundering  in  the 
water.  But  two  places  were  found  where  horses 
could  keep  their  footing.  A  second  charge  was 
ordered,  the  mounted  men  taking  only  a  single  pis- 
jtol  this  time  in  hand.  This  second  charge  was  re 
pulsed  also,  and  not  at  all  by  the  continued  storm 

of  arrows,  but  because   our  horses   suddenly  came 

(237) 


238  MY   OWN    STORY. 

upon  spears  and  elkhorns  and  sharp  sticks  that 
pointed  outward  from  the  island.  The  water  was 
made  bloody  and  ruddy  from  their  wounds,  and  they 
refused  to  go  forward.  At  the  third  and  final  on 
slaught  the  men  stripped  to  the  waist,  and  waded  to 
their  necks,  advancing  from  every  side  and  firing 
their  pistols  only,  while  the  men  in  the  grass  kept" 
firing  at  long  range  with  larger  artillery. 

As  for  myself,  I  sat  on  a  horse  a  little  distance 
back  directing  the  fight.  Suddenly  I  saw  a  great 
commotion.  Then  boats  shot  out  from  every  side. 
It  was  a  cunning  and  a  most  carefully  planned 
scheme,  and  brilliantly  conducted  on  the  part  of  the 
Indians.  "  Save  who  can!  "  At  first  our  men  in 
the  water  fell  back.  Then  they  rallied  and  fought 
hand  to  hand,  often  up  to  their  necks  in  the  water. 

Let  it  be  confessed  that  it  was  a  great  satisfac 
tion  to  see  so  many  canoes  filled  with  women  and 
children  and  old  men  dart  through  that  band  of 
naked  besiegers  and  escape  to  the  wider  waters, 
the  willows,  the  grass.  But  for  all  that  the  water 
was  red.  It  was  the  reading  over  again  the  bloody 
page  of  Prescott,  the  Aztec,  Cortez  and  his  boats 
on  Tezcuco  —  the  bloody  water! 

There  was  one  little  boat  that  I  from  the  first 
noticed  with  concern  ;  for  it  held  a  young  woman, 


THE  LOST  CAPTIVE.  239 

who  was  singularly  tall  and  slight  and'  supple. 
There  was  only  one  other  person  in  this  boat,  a 
bent  old  man.  Guided  by  the  girl's  strong,  sure 
hand,  the  craft  got  through  the  besieging  party  and 
came  to  land  a  few  hundred  yards  from  where  I 
sat,  the  girl  landing  first,  stooping  low,  running 
forward  leading  the  bent  old  man,  almost  dragging 
him  in  her  swift  run  through  the  long,  green  grass. 
I  plunged  forward;  my  horse  sank  to  his  knees, 
then  to  his  belly.  I  ran  on  after  the  fugitives  on 
foot.  I  did  not  even  draw  my  pistol  from  the  holster. 
My  mission  was  of  love;  not  of  war!  But  alas, 
and  alas,  it  was  not  she!  The  bent  old  man  was 
badly  shot,  and  made  the  water  in  which  the  rank 
grass  stood  bloody  as  they  ran.  He  fell  on  his 
back  as  I  ran  up,  and  kicked  at  me,  trying  to  keep 
me  back  for  the  girl  to  escape.  But  she  refused  to 
run.  She  bent  down  over  her  father  and  held  his 
head  up  out  of  the  water,  glaring  at  me  like  a  wild 
beast.  Her  black  eyes  literally  blazed.  I  turned 
back  and  left  them. 

Out  and  up  from  the  great  rich  valley  of  grasses 
and  flowers  the  Army  of  California  rode  on  the  first 
day  of  May,  leaving  not  one  visible  Indian  behind. 
Some  of  the  horses  were  hung  with  scalps,  as  if 
they  had  been  hung  in  black  fringe  for  a  funeral. 


240  MY    OWN   STORY. 

The  Army  of  Northern  California,  as  it  rode  out  and 
up  from  the  valley  through  the  glorious  pines,  was 
literally  loaded  down  with  scalps,  with  plunder  and 
with  vermin. 

I  left  this  wild  string  of  howling  human  beings 
on  the  first  day  out,  and  struck  through  the  wil 
derness  alone  for  my  own  camp.  I  was  fired  upon 
from  ambush  almost  immediately,  but  contrived  to 
reach  home;  and,  ifthe  printer  finds  this  MS.  hard 
to  decipher,  let  the  bullet  wound  and  the  broken 
arm  that  I  carried  back  with  me  be  my  excuse  for 
its  bad  condition. 

And  that  beautiful  and  silent  lady  there  alone 
among  the  savages?  Never  another  word  or  sign 
of  her. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

UNTOLD   TRAGEDIES. 

I  NOW  saw  that  I  had  made  a  grave  mistake. 
Indians  are  clannish.  They  may  fight  among  each 
other  like  the  other  people  of  the  earth;  but  let 
them  be  attacked  by  the  common  enemy,  and  they 
make  common  cause.  I  had  fought  against  their 
brothers,  and  I  was  not  to  be  at  once  forgiven 
for  that.  On  the  other  hand,  I  had  sympathized 
with  the  Indians.  That  also  was  a  mortal  crime, 
an  unpardonable  offense,  in  the  eyes  of  the  whites. 

Those  of  the  Northern  States  who  will  remem 
ber  the  -feeling  that  once  was  he[d  in  the  Southern 
States  against  those  who  sympathized  with  the 
blacks  will  understand  something  of  the  feeling  in 
the  West  against  those  who  take  part  with  the 
Indians. 

I  had  attempted  to  sit  on  two  seats  at  once, 
and  had  slid  between  the  two.  It  takes  a  big  man 
to  sit  on  two  chairs  at  once.  Any  man  who  has 
the  capacity  to  do  such  a  thing,  has  also  the  good 
sense  not  to  attempt  it. 

My  wound  was  severe.     It  was   nearly  a  year 

16  (241) 


242  MY   OWN   STORY. 

before  I  was  able  to  lift  a  hand.  Yet  all  this  time 
—  what  terror  !  what  tales  of  blood  ! 

The  Indians  came  slowly  back  into  the  country, 
but  some  never  came.  They  had  gone  to  the  Pitt 
River  war.  The  rank  grass  is  growing  above  their 
ashes  on  the  hills  that  look  upon  that  winding, 
shining  river. 

Klamat  was  never  friendly  after  that.  The 
defeat  of  the  Indians  on  all  occasions,  without 
being  able  to  inflict  any  injury  in  return,  made 
him  desperate,  and  to  see  me  among  their  enemies 
did  not  add  to  his  good  nature.  But  Paquita  was 
the  same — the  same  gentleness  in  her  manner, 
the  same  deep  sadness  in  her  eyes  as  she  tended 
me. 

The  Doctor  was-a  day's  journey  distant, 'safe  out 
of  all  the  trouble  and  tragedy.  The  Prince  was 
far  away.  I  was  alone  and  friendless.  There  was 
not  a  day  now  that  did  not  know  some  terrible 
tragedy.  Three  proud  and  warlike  tribes  of  red 
men  were  dying.  Their  death  throes  were  terrible. 
Years  and  years  after  the  events  which  I  hastily 
record,  the  armies  of  the  United  States  antagonized 
with  a  remnant  of  one  of  these  tribes,  the  Modocs, 
and  made  a  red  spot  on  the  map  that  must  remain 
as  long  as  history.  And  it  is  by  this  alone  that 


UNTOLD   TRAGEDIES.  243 

you*  are  to  read  the  terrible  things  that  I  lived 
through  in  these  early  years.  For  I  refuse  to  re 
cord  the  long  and  bloody  struggle.  Enough  to  say 
that  there  were  battles  fought  here,  battles  that 
would  make  a  book  of  tragedy  and  pathos,  that  are 
now  entirely  forgotten;  for  this  was  before  the 
day  of  telegraphs  and  special  correspondents,  and 
all  those  who  took  part,  save  myself,  the  Indians 
on  one  side,  and  the  miners  on  the  other,  have 

* 

passed  from  the  stage  of  action.  Let  us  not  linger, 
but  hasten  to  the  sad  conclusion. 

Little  Klamat,  now  a  man,  and  a  man  of  author 
ity,  was  in  the  front.  That  fierce  boy,  burning 
with  a  memory  that  possessed  him  utterly,  and 
made  him  silent,  sullen,  and  desperate,  cared  not 
where  he  fought  or  for  whom  he  fought,  only  so 
that  he  fought  the  common  enemy. 

Paquita  ?  What  was  she  doing  ?  Molding 
bullets  !  grinding  bread  !  shaping  arrow-heads 
and  stringing  bows  !  Maybe  she  was  a  sort  of 
Puritan  mother,  fighting  the  British  for  home  and 
hearthstone  in  the  Revolution.  Maybe  she  was  a 
Florence  Nightingale  nursing  the  British  soldiers  in 
the  Crimea. 

I  went  down  to  the  camp,  where  Klamat,  Paquita, 
and  about  one  hundred  warriors,  with  a  few  women 


244  MY    OWN    STORY. 

who  were  nursing  their  wounded,  were  preparing 
for  the  last  final  fight.  Here  we  waited  till  the 
Modocs  came  down,  and  the  three  tribes  joined 
their  thinned  forces,  and  made  common  cause. 

Women  were  gathering  roots  for  their  half-starved 
children,  children  whose  parents  had  been  slain, 
lost  in  the  woods,  and  wandering  they  knew  not 
whither. 

Shots  were  exchanged.  The  miners  dismounted, 
and  fought  on  foot.  The  Indians  shot  wildly,  for 
they  were  poorly  armed;  the  miners  shot  with 
deadly  precision.  Now  and  then  a  miner  would  be 
carried  to  the  rear,  and  now  and  then  they  would 
charge  up  the  hills  or  across  the  ravines,  but  that 
was  all  that  marked  the  events  of  the  day  till  night 
fall. 

Toward  nightfall  the  Indians,  now  entirely  out  of 
ammunition,  withdrew,  leaving  the  miners,  as  usual, 
masters  of  the  ground. 

Klamat  had  fallen  in  the  fight,  gun  in  hand,  and 
all  his  bravest  warriors  with  him. 

About  midnight  the  women  began  to  wail  for  the 
dead  from  the  hills.  What  a  wail,  and  what  a 
night!  There  is  no  sound  so  sad,  so  heartbroken 
and  pitiful,  as  this  long  and  sorrowful  lamentation. 
Sometimes  it  is  almost  savage,  it  is  loud,  and  fierce, 


UNTOLD   TRAGEDIES.  245 

and  vehement,  and  your  heart  sinks,  and  you  sym 
pathize,  and  you  think  of  your  own  dead,  and  you 
lament  with  them  the  common  lot  of  man.  Then 
your  soul  widens  out,  and  you  begin  to  go  down 
with  them  to  the  shore  of  the  dark  water,  to  stand 
there,  to  be  with  them  and  of  them,  there  in  the 
great  mysterious  shadow  of  death,  and  to  feel  how 
much  we  are  all  alike,  and  how  little  difference 
there  is  in  the  destinies,  the  sorrows,  and  the  sym 
pathies  of  all  the  children  of  men. 

We  had  not  a  single  shot  left,  and  but  few  ar 
rows.  While  the  old  women  were  mourning  their 
dead  from  the  hills,  the  few  remaining  warriors, 
wounded,  beaten,  entirely  broken  in  spirit,  melted 
away  in  the  dark,  deep  woods  that  reached  up 
toward  Mount  Shasta. 

I,  too,  could  have  escaped  for  a  time  in  that 
direction.  But  that  would  only  have  continued  the 
war  and  kept  up  the  pursuit.  For  it  was  the  white 
man,  the  terrible,  bloodthirsty  renegade,  they 
wanted  most  of  all.  There  could  be  neither  truce 
nor  peace  while  this  man  lived  among  the  Indians. 

There  were  a  few  strong  horses  left.  Why  not 
mount,  and  ride  right  down  through  the  line  at 
daylight  to  the  banks  of  the  river,  swim  the  river, 


246  MY   OWN   STORY. 

climb  the  precipitous  crags  on  the  other  side,  and 
escape  to  the  south? 

I  spoke  to  Paqui.ta  about  this  as  morning  broke, 
and  we  could  see  the  line  of  soldiers'  camp  that 
stretched  between  us  and  the  river  below.  I 
assured  her,  that,  once  on  the  other  side  of  that 
wide,  deep  water,  I  would  be  safe,  for  no  man  would 
risk  his  life  to  follow. 

She  said  not  a  single  word,  but  turned  away  with 
a  sign  that  I  should  wait,  and  was  gone. 

Noon  came  and  passed.  Night  was  coming  on. 
The  soldiers  were  tightening  a  line  around  us.  Had 
she,  too,  gone?  Was  I  alone  to  be  the  sacrifice? 
Not  another  creature  than  myself  was  now  to  be 
seen  in  our  camp. 

Suddenly,  through  a  cleft  in  a  dense  clump  of 
cedars,  she  came,  leading  two  horses.  She  had 
been  waiting  for  the  twilight  to  conceal  her 
movements. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE   DEATH   OF   PAQUITA. 

BUT  what  could  she  mean  to  do?  why  two 
horses? 

She  did  not  keep  me  long  in  suspense.  Hand 
ing  me  the  lariat  of  the  stronger  horse,  she  hastily 
and  without  a  word  threw  herself  on  the  other,  and, 
beckoning  me  to  follow,  led  hastily  on  straight  down 
toward  the  river;  for  the  soldiers  were  already  in 
our  rear,  and  closing  around  us  fast.  She  struck 
straight  down  for  the  wide,  deep  river,  as  I  had  first 
indicated.  She  did  not  deviate  or  delay,  but 
dashed,  full  gallop,  right  through  the  lines,  and 
leaped  boldly  from  the  bank  into  the  dark,  swift 
waters. 

It  was  a  fearful  leap;  not  far,  but  sudden  and  ugly, 
with  everything  against  us.  My  horse  and  myself 
went  far  down  in  the  blue,  cold  river,  but  he  rose 
bravely,  and  struck  out  fairly  for  the  other  side. 

But  Paquita  was  not  so  fortunate.  The  river  ran 
in  an  eddy,  and  her  bewildered  horse  spun  round 
and  round  in  the  whirlpool. 

The   soldiers    discharged  a  volley   as   we  disap- 

(247) 


248  MY   OWN   STORY. 

peared,  but  I  think  neither  of  us  were  touched  this 
first  fire.  My  horse  swam  very  slow,  and  dropped 
far  down  the  current.  The  soldiers  came  up,  stood 
on  the  bank,  deliberately  loaded,  aimed  their  pieces, 
and  fired  every  shot  of  the  platoon  at  me,  but  only 
touched  my  horse.  They  had  not  yet  discovered 
Paquita,  still  struggling  in  the  eddy,  almost  under 
their  feet.  At  last  she  got  her  horse  turned  and 
struck  out,  diving,  and  holding  on  to  the  mane. 

She  was  not  forty  feet  from  the  soldiers  when  dis 
covered.  Pistols  were  drawn,  and  a  hundred  shots, 
and  still  another  hundred,  rained  down  upon  and 
around  the  brave  child. 

I  was  down  the  stream  out  of  reach,  and  nearing 
the  shore.  I  witnessed  the  dreadful  struggle,  look 
ing  back,  clinging  to  my  wounded  horse's  mane. 

She  would  dive,  would  reappear,  a  volley  of  shot, 
down  again  till  almost  stifled  ;  up,  again  a  volley, 
and  shouts  and  shots  from  the  shore. 

It  seemed  she  would  never  get  away  from  out 
the  rain  of  lead.  Slowly,  oh  how  slowly  !  her 
wounded  horse  struggled  on  against  the  cold,  blue 
flood  that  boiled  and  swept  about. 

At  last  my  spent  horse  touched  a  reach  of  sand 
far  below,  that  made  a  shoal  from  shore,  and  I 
again  looked  back. 


THE  DEATH   OF  PAQUITA.  249 

My  horse  refused  to  go  further,  but  stood  bleed 
ing  and  trembling  in  the  water  up  to  his  breast,  and 
I  managed  to  make  land  alone.  I  crept  up  the 
bank,  clutching  the  long,  wiry  grass  and  water- 
plants.  I  drew  myself  up,  and  sat  down  on  the 
rocks,  still  warm  from  the  vanished  sunshine. 

When  I  had  strength  to  rise,  I  went  up  the  warm, 
grassy  river-bank,  peering  through  the  tules  in  an 
almost  hopeless  search  for  my  companion.  Noth 
ing  was  to  be  seen.  The  troops  on  the  other  bank 
had  gone  away,  not  knowing,  perhaps  not  caring, 
what  they  had  done. 

The  deep,  blue  river  gave  no  sign  of  the  tragedy 
now.  All  was  as  still  as  the  tomb.  I  stole  close 
and  slowly  along  the  bank.  I  felt  a  desolation  that 
was  new  and  dreadful  in  its  awful  solemnity.  The 
bluff  of  the  river  hung  in  basaltic  columns  a  thou 
sand  feet  above  my  head  ;  only  a  narrow  little  strip 
of  grass  and  tules,  and  reeds  and  willows,  nodding, 
dipping,  dripping,  in  the  swift,  strong  river. 

Not  a  bird  flew  over,  not  a  cricket  called  from 
out  the  long  grass.  "  Ah,  what  an  ending  is  this!  " 
I  said,  and  sat  down  in  despair.  My  eyes  were 
riveted  on  the  river.  Up  and  down  on  the  other 
side,  everywhere  I  scanned  with  Indian  eyes  for 
even  a  sign  of  life,  for  friend  or  foe.  Nothing  but 


250  MY   OWN   STORY. 

the  bubble  and  gurgle  of  the  waters,  the  nodding, 
dipping,  dripping  of  the  reeds,  the  willows  and  the 
tules. 

If  earth  has  any  place  more  solemn,  more  soli 
tary,  more  awful,  than  the  banks  of  a  strong,  deep 
river,  rushing,  at  nightfall,  through  a  mountain  for 
est,  where  even  the  birds  have  forgotten  to  sing,  or 
the  katydid  to  call  from  the  grass,  I  know  not  where 
it  is. 

I  stole  further  up  the  bank  ;  and  there,  almost  at 
my  feet,  a  little  face  was  lifted,  as  if  rising  from  the 
water  into  mine. 

Blood  was  flowing  from  her  mouth,  and  she  could 
not  speak.  Her  naked  arms  were  reached  out  and 
holding  on  to  the  grassy  bank,  but  she  could  not 
draw  her  body  from  the  water.  I  put  my  arms 
about  her,  and,  with  sudden  and  singular  strength, 
lifted  her  up  and  back  to  some  warm,  dry  rocks, 
and  there  sat  down  with  the  dying  girl  in  my  arms. 

Her  robe  had  floated  away  in  the  flood,  and  she 
was  nearly  naked.  She  was  bleeding  from  many 
wounds.  Her  whole  body  seemed  to  be  covered 
with  blood  as  I  drew  her  from  the  water.  Blood 
spreads  with  water  over  a  warm  body  in  streams 
and  seams  ;  and  at  such  a  time  a  body  seems  to  be 
covered  with  a  sheet  of  crimson. 


THE   DEATH    OF   PAQUITA.  2$  I 

Paquita ! 

I  entreated  her  to  speak.  I  called  to  her,  but  she 
could  not  answer.  The  desolation  and  solitude 
was  now  only  the  more  dreadful.  My  voice  came 
back  in  strange  echoes  from  the  basalt  bluffs,  and 
that  was  all  the  answer  I  ever  had. 

Blood  on  my  hands,  blood  on  my  clothes,  and 
blood  on  the  grass  and  stones. 

The  lonely  night  was  soft  and  sultry.  The 
great  white  moon  rose  up  and  rolled  along  the 
heavens,  and  sifted  through  the  boughs  that  lifted 
above  and  reached  from  the  hanging  cliff,  and  fell 
in  lines  and  spangles  across  the  face  and  form  of 
my  dead. 

Paquita! 

Once  so  alone  in  the  awful  presence  of  death,  I 
became  terrified.  My  heart  and  soul  were  strung 
to  such  a  tension,  it  became  intolerable.  I  bent 
my  head,  and  tried  to  hide  my  face. 

Paquita  dead  ! 

Our  lives  had  first  run  together  in  currents  of 
blood  on  the  snow,  in  persecution  and  ruin,  in  the 
shadows  and  in  the  desolation  of  death ;  and  so 
now  they  separated  forever. 

Paquita  dead  ! 

We  had  starved  together  ;  stood  by  the  sounding 


252  MY   OWN   STORY. 

cataracts,  threaded  the  forests,  roamed  by  the  river- 
banks  together  ;  grown  from  childhood,  as  it  were, 
together.  But  now  she  had  gone  away,  crossed 
the  dark  and  mystic  river  alone,  and  left  me  to 
make  the  rest  of  the  journey  with  strangers  and 
without  a  friend. 

Paquita  ! 

Why,  we  had  watched  the  greatsun  land,  like  some 
mighty  navigator  sailing  the  blue  seas  of  heaven, 
on^the  flashing  summit  of  Shasta;  had  seen  him  come 
with  lifted  sword  and  shield,  and  take  possession  of 
the  continent  of  darkness  ;  had  watched  him  in  the 
twilight  marshal  his  forces  there  for  the  last  great 
struggle  with  the  shadows,  creeping  like  evil  spirits 
through  the  woods,  and,  like  the  red  man,  make  a 
last  grand  battle  there  for  his  old  dominions.  We 
had  seen  him  fall  and  die  at  last  with  all  the  snow- 
peak  crimsoned  in  his  blood. 

No  more  now.  Paquita,  the  child  of  nature,  the 
sunbeam  of  the  forest,  the  star  that  had  seen  so 
little  of  light,  lay  wrapped  in  darkness. 

That  night  my  life  widened  and  widened  away 
till  it  touched  and  took  in  the  shores  of  death. 

Tenderly  at  last  I  laid  her  down,  and  gathered 
fallen  branches,  decayed  wood,  and  dry,  dead 
reeds,  and  built  a  ready  pyre. 


THE   DEATH   OF   PAQUITA.  253 

I  struck  flints  together,  made  a  fire,  and,  when  the 
surf  of  light  again  broke  in  across  the  eastern  wall, 
I  lifted  her  up,  laid  her  tenderly  on  the  pile,  com 
posed  her  face,  and  laid  her  little  hands  across  her 
breast. 

I  lighted  the  grass  and  tules.  The  fire  took  hold, 
and  leaped  and  laughed,  and  crackled,  and  reached 
as  if  to  touch  the  solemn  boughs  that  bent  and 
waved  from  the  cliffs  above,  as  bending  and  look 
ing  into  a  grave.  I  gathered  white  stones  and  laid 
a  circle  around  the  embers,  and,  while  doing  this,  I 
discovered  a  canoe  in  the  tules,  which  soon  bore  me 
away  in  safety. 

How  rank  and  tall  the  grass  is  growing  above  her 
ashes  now!  The  stones  have  settled  and  settled 
till  almost  sunk  in  the  earth,  but  this  girl  is  not 
forgotten.  This  is  the  monument  I  raise  above  her 
ashes  and  her  faithful  life.  I  have  written  this 
that  she  shall  be  remembered,  and  this  narrative 
should  here  have  an  end. 


FINIS. 


tETURN 


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